Friday brief: Domestic abuse charity says West unitary leader should not have been elected after assault conviction
Convicted domestic abuser Jonathan Nunn is still clinging onto power at West Northants Council as the authority says it cannot act on ‘hearsay’
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The Tory leader of West Northamptonshire Council (WNC) should not have been elected to public office after he was convicted for a vicious assault on a former wife, says a Northampton domestic abuse charity.
This week Private Eye published allegations of domestic abuse made by Jonathan Nunn’s first wife Maria Botterill, which has led to calls from opposition groups on WNC for him to stand down.
The councillor, who was given 180 hours community service in 2004 for violently attacking his second wife Janice in the street, has said the new allegations are ‘unfounded’ and is still in office, but domestic abuse charity Eve says anyone with a known history of violence against women should not be elected to public office.
Its chief executive Christine Morgan said:
“Domestic abuse should not be tolerated at any level in our society, but it is. Every time we elect a politician or promote a police officer who has a known history of interpersonal violence or violence against women and girls we effectively tell people that ‘it’s ok’, we tell their victims that they don’t matter and nor does their pain.”
His former wife Maria, was prompted to speak out about her own experience being married to Cllr Nunn in the 1990s after becoming aware of his involvement in the campaign It Only Takes One, asking people to call out violence against women.
NN Journal has known of the allegations for many weeks, having spoken to women previously involved in relationships with Cllr Nunn and in January we were threatened with legal action by the politician, if we published the claims. Through his lawyers he denied the accusations made against him, full details of which we are currently unable to publish.
The unitary authority has gone to great lengths to stop the allegations being aired to the wider public - even stopping the live YouTube feed at the most recent full council meeting. Cllr Paul Clark had tried to bring up the claims made by Maria Botterill but was prevented from continuing, by chairman John Shepherd. In an email to Cllr Clark in response to a complaint he made about her, the council’s chief executive Anna Earnshaw suggested that having been made aware of the potential defamatory nature of Cllr Clark’s speech, the authority could have faced a claim from the leader and so decided to halt the broadcast.
UK law gives councillors in a public forum legal protection to speak freely as long as it is without malice.
Asked if shutting down the live stream was an appropriate thing to do, the authority said:
“If a false allegation (or one which cannot be proven) is made in the chamber which is webcast by the Council there is a risk that a Councillor, employee or member of the public who was the subject of such a statement could take a defamation action. This would particularly be so if the Council was made aware that such a statement was likely to be made and that the Council had the means readily available to prevent that statement from being broadcast.”
Asked whether it was responsible for the chief executive to tell Cllr Clark in an email on April 2 that domestic abuse was a ‘personal matter’ and not for the council to investigate, the council said:
“Domestic abuse is never acceptable. The Council supports a number of partners to support those who have suffered Domestic Abuse or are risk of doing so and will continue to do so. The Leader has been public about his past conviction and regret about his past mistakes. The issue the Council faced in receiving these allegations was just that, they are allegations and they have not been investigated by the police as a criminal matter or proven. We cannot make a judgement or investigate hearsay or reported events and conversations we were not party to.”
Currently Cllr Nunn’s local Conservative colleagues are still supporting him. Not one has made a public statement. Yesterday we tried to call the deputy leader Cllr Adam Brown to ask if his leader still had his support but did not receive an answer.
The group will decide whether to re-elect Cllr Nunn as leader at its annual general meeting shortly, with sources telling NN Journal, there is a growing number who will decide not to endorse his leadership.
The Labour group says his position is untenable:
“We councillors have rightly made a commitment to working to end domestic violence and supporting survivors and their families. It is vital this mission is not undermined by the doubt that has been cast on the suitability and integrity of the council's leadership to speak out on this serious matter. Cllr Nunn’s resignation would mean we can make ending domestic violence in our area a genuine and credible commitment.
“This ongoing situation has now reached a stage where it is becoming an obstructive distraction to officers, councillors, and the public from the important work the council must undertake every day to improve the lives of our residents. The Conservative Group must step up, realise the severity of the situation, and consider whether they can credibly continue to lead the council after this series of events which will seriously impact our reputation as a public authority tasked with protecting residents.
And the Liberal Democrat group said in light of the new allegations, Cllr Nunn should consider his position.
“The Conservatives, who elected him as leader as they have a majority at WNC, are the only ones who can constitutionally remove him.”
The independent group on the council, which is led by Cllr Ian McCord has called for an independent KC to investigate the matter.
We asked Cllr Nunn yesterday if he denied the allegations made in Private Eye, which included details of a domestic violence perpetrator scheme he was ordered to attend in 2012 by the family court.
We received a response from him to the Labour group statement.
It said:
“I have always been open and honest about the fact that 20 years ago I received a conviction for assault and a community order - I have spoken publicly about this before and this has also been a matter of public record for many years, since before I was elected as a borough and now a unitary councillor by members of the public and became council leader.
“Domestic abuse is never acceptable and I regret my past mistakes. This past behaviour is not something I am proud of, and in the many years that have since passed I have worked hard to make up for the past by trying to contribute something positive. Central to this has been working hard as a councillor to put as much as I can back into my local community, helping me to see new and fresh perspectives that have helped me to grow as a person.
“At the moment there is an individual, with a previous, proven track record of harassment and intimidation, and motivated by their own business interests, who is seeking to discredit me in my position as Council Leader in a relentless campaign of harassment. This has included unfounded accusations of abuse through emails sent to many people and now to the media.
“Due to the relentless and exhausting stream of attacks, I have therefore contacted the police who are actively investigating these issues.
“I am not sure if the Labour party were aware of the full facts behind this sustained campaign against me when making this statement but I would welcome a private discussion with Cllr Randall should she wish to do so.”
His harassment claims in part relate to the recent emails Maria Botterill has sent to the authority and his fellow councillors, about his behaviour towards her while they were married and also detailing her concerns that her nursery business may have been negatively impacted by her association with him.
However, despite Cllr Nunn’s claims, Maria Botterill said yesterday that she has not been contacted by police concerning any harassment accusations.
Northamptonshire Police said they had received a report of alleged harassment on February 29 and it was being looked into.
News in brief:
An unannounced inspection of a Northamptonshire prison has exposed prisoners’ high levels of self-harm, ‘easy’ access to illegal drugs and a high turnover of inexperienced staff.
The report into Wellingborough’s HMP Five Wells was carried out by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for the first time following its opening in March 2022. One of the newest prisons in the country, the establishment is run by private company G4S on the site of the old Wellingborough prison.
The prison watchdog found problems concerning weak governance, reports of self-harm, a lack of meaningful activity for inmates and inexperienced staff. It wrote that the priority concerns require “immediate action” by leaders. The inspection took place over two weeks in January 2024.
There were some significant challenges with leadership, with the prison having appointed three directors since it opened. However, the chief inspector said that the new director had brought a “much-needed sense of stability” to the facility.
The modern category C rehabilitation and resettlement prison houses up to 1,687 prisoners with up to two years left on their sentence. There are plans to expand the site further to 1,715 people.
The report noted that drugs remained a “huge problem” in the prison. Random testing suggested that about a third of all prisoners were active users. Just over half of prisoners said it was ‘easy’ to get hold of illegal drugs, against the comparator of 32 per cent in other similar prisons.
The rate of self-harm incidents in the prison was also high and the inspection found that not enough was being done to reduce them. There had been 1,256 recorded incidents in the 12 months before the inspection took place, which the report wrote was “very high” compared to other establishments.
It also found that staff lacked confidence in supervising prisoners and were not given sufficient support. More than half the PCOs had been in post for less than one year and as a result too much poor inmate behaviour was left “unchallenged”.
The attrition rate in staff was also high and the inspector wrote that the prison was reliant on officers from other establishments.
Report by Nadia Lincoln, local democracy reporter
A long serving councillor has said the current customer service being given by North Northamptonshire Council is the worst he has known in four decades.
Independent Cllr Jim Hakewill spoke out at this week’s corporate scrutiny meeting after a report was given about current customer service rates at the authority. He and others on the committee expressed concern about long wait times for callers and also the current situation in which councillors are having to wait ten working days for a response from officers.
The main theme running through the current "Domestic abuse" scandal at WNC seems to be, that, unelected Council officials making decisions to stopped Councillors expressing an opinion without malice.
This is unacceptable in a Democratic society. Councillors are elected to speak out and highlight and debate serious issues affecting society. If this freedom of speech is suppress than you really are on a sleepery slopes.
One one hand I'm willing to believe that a man who beats his wife can learn from the experience (and the criminal conviction) and turn his life around. On the other hand, the fact that subsequent partners have also had to report him to the police for domestic abuse casts doubt on Cllr Nunn's claim to be a reformed character. Sadly, criminal convictions no longer end political careers. Only voters can do that.