Sheffield residents, please take note. The Labour Council asked a High Court judge to imprison an opposition Green councillor on the strength of wishful evidence which the judge described as “mistaken”. They are your elected representatives, supposed to be making decisions in the best interests of the community. You may want to question why they used public money to try to rid themselves of an opposition councillor.
The court also heard how the Council had changed the words of the formal injunction from what the judge actually ordered, to what one officer described as ‘the spirit of the judgment.’ This attempt to intimidate and mislead the public is dishonest and quite frankly disgraceful.
This case comes after Labour Councillors voted me out of a full Council meeting for daring to suggest that Cllr Bryan Lodge had ‘misled’ the public. All 28 opposition councillors walked out in protest.
Internal complaints are still being pursued against me by the council’s Legal Director who accuses me of “bringing the Council into disrepute” and breaching the councillors’ Code of Conduct. I was arrested in February under anti-trade union legislation (the 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations Act) which the Crown Prosecution Service dropped due to lack of evidence.
In my opinion, the Labour Executive are doing a remarkable and unfortunate job of bringing Sheffield Council into disrepute locally, nationally and internationally.
The Council prefer to intimidate and bully opposition councillors and residents opposed to their horrendously short-sighted tree felling programme, rather than listen to residents and make informed decisions to retain thousands of healthy street trees.
I have no choice but to call publicly for the Council to be held accountable for their expensive, politically motivated, and punitive legal action against me and other Sheffield residents opposed to their tree felling programme.
Cllr Alison Teal
Green Party
Letter to Sheffield Star.