Council deleted councillor bath footage
A Freedom of Information request has discovered the notorious video footage involving the deputy leader has been deleted.
By Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
The West unitary council has been accused of covering up an incident in which its deputy leader allegedly logged into a council video call and exposed himself while getting into the bath.
In a full council meeting last year, Reform councillor James Petter was called out by Independent councillor Ian McCord for leaving his camera on in a treasury management training meeting, while deciding he was going to take a bath.
Cllr McCord referred to Mr Petter as Cllr Pecker and went on to explain what he had seen, stating that “once seen, certain things cannot be unseen”.
The incident even received national notoriety and was featured in this year’s Private Eye Rotten Borough Awards.
At the time, both West Northamptonshire Council and Cllr Petter did not respond to LDRS requests for comment on the situation.
It has now been confirmed, through freedom of information (FOI) requests sent to the council, that the recording of the September training session was deleted shortly after the meeting finished, as it “contained personally sensitive content relating to an individual and was therefore deleted to protect their privacy”.
WNC also confirmed that it was the only recording that had been deleted out of all of the online training sessions put on since the new cohort of councillors joined in May. It said it had no written policy or procedure in relation to recordings, including training sessions.
Cllr Jonathan Harris, who leads the Lib Dem group on the council, has questioned why the video was deleted so quickly, and if the response from the council and the Reform UK party was appropriate for such a “serious issue”.
He said:
“Why are we covering up this sort of thing? If there was an issue there and there had been complaints, then it’s effectively getting rid of evidence.
“In any other walk of life, it would’ve been treated extremely seriously and there would’ve been some sort of inquiry into what’s gone on and at the very least an apology, but of course those don’t really exist for councillors.
“We need to strengthen the code of conduct for councillors. At the moment, the discipline of councillors sits with their political group.
“Fundamentally, what on earth is Reform doing allowing that to take place? What steps did Cllr Arnull as group leader and as leader of the council take?
“One can only hope he’s learned his lesson and he’s learned how to switch his camera on and off.”
According to the member’s code of conduct, councillors must not conduct themself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing your office or the council into disrepute. This applies to councillors whenever they are acting in capacity as a member of the council, including dealings with officers.
Labour group leader Sally Keeble also raised concerns around the deletion of the recording due to the severity of the allegations.
She said:
“I completely understand [the council] taking it down, but I think they were wrong to destroy it. They should’ve kept it until it had been completely investigated.
“I cannot understand them destroying it to protect the councillor’s feelings. He appears to have exposed himself and breached his own privacy, whether deliberately or not and I gather it wasn’t, and it could be seen to be gross misconduct.
“If there are general rules about exposure on social media or video conferencing, I think it should be dealt with under the procedures and those should apply whether it’s a member of staff or a councillor.
“They need to be very clear about what’s deemed acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. You have got to have the same set of rules that apply to everybody.”
More than 40 people were logged into the online session including council officers and elected members, according to attendance records, although it is not clear how many people saw the deputy leader’s camera.
Conservative councillor Pinder Chauhan, who was on the training call but said she didn’t witness the incident directly, told the LDRS:
“You’re expected as a councillor not to be getting in a bath, especially during a training call, and actually it was indecent exposure.
“They’ve kind of laughed it off as a funny moment. If that were me in a workplace that did it, I would probably be sacked.
“When you stand for public office, there’s a standard that you’re expected to abide by – people have elected you to be responsible and to represent them.
“It’s the deputy leader of the council we’re talking about; he should be leading by example.”
The LDRS has put the allegations to Cllr Petter, council leader Mark Arnull and WNC and asked them to confirm or deny if the incident happened, what action has been taken, and to respond to the accusations of a cover up.
Neither the councillors, nor the council has responded.
If this was a female councillor I wonder how different the attitude of other councillors and the press would be.
Quite rightly was deleted and if you put an FOI in for it that is pretty sad.
Brilliant reporting on this. The councilor's judgement aside, deleting the recording so quickly looks like destroying evidence. I've sat through local government meetings and the selective enforcement around conduct codes is always frustrating. The real issue isnt just the bath incident but how quickly leadership moves to protect their own insteadof maintaining basic accountability standards.