Town council pays out after unlawfully suspending councillor

A town council has agreed to apologise to a councillor and pay nearly £8,000 in legal fees after accepting that it had unlawfully suspended him.

Daventry Town Council accepted that it did not have the power to impose the sanctions it sought to impose on UKIP councillor Ruaraidh Macanndrais on 12 March 2012. These were suspension, banning and a request for an apology.

Cllr Macanndrais subsequently launched judicial review proceedings.

The town council has now admitted that the responsibility for monitoring the observation of its code of conduct fell exclusively to the standards committee of Daventry District Council under sections 53 to 55 of the Local Government Act 2000 (as then in force).

It was also acknowledged that Cllr Macanndrais was raising a matter of public interest which he had a right to do at meetings of the council on 19 March 2012 and 2 April 2012.