Chorley councillor's ‘Asian bullies’ e-mail probe (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Chorley councillor's ‘Asian bullies’ e-mail probe

2:07pm Thursday 9th July 2009 in

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A LEADING county councillor is to be investigated by a conduct watchdog after she sent an e-mail describing local Asians as ‘bullies’.

Pat Case, deputy leader of Chorley Council who was last month appointed to Lancashire County Council’s cabinet, has been referred to the Standards Board for England.

The email, sent to Conservative Party colleagues on May 13, called for the removal of fellow borough councillor, Labour’s Hasina Khan, as chair of Chorley Council’s equalities forum, describing her as a ‘dreadful chair’.

The e-mail goes on to say ‘the local Chorley Asians. . .stay away because they can’t bully and get their own way’.

Coun Khan, Chorley’s first and only non-white councillor, said she was ‘devastated and appalled’ when she learned of the contents of the e-mail.

Coun Khan was replaced as chair of the forum on May 13 by Coun Greg Morgan.

Coun Khan sent a complaint to Chorley Council and wrote to the Conservative Party and the Racial Equalities Council.

An independently-chaired panel said the views expressed about councillor Khan’s leadership were acceptable as ‘members are entitled to express their personal and political views when they are acting in their official capacity’.

However, the panel went on the say that the line containing the ‘bully’ comment ‘could be interpreted as breaching the code of conduct’ because members must respect each other and must not breach equality enactments or bring their authority into disrepute.

The panel also stated: “The complaint is further complic-ated by the fact of the email being sent using Lancashire County Council computer equipment.”

Councillor Khan, who rep-resents Chorley East, said: “I’m glad that her comments are being looked into as I do not think it is appropriate to bring up people’s ethnicity and particularly to generalise Chorley’s Asians as ‘bullies’.”

Coun Case, who has the children and schools portfolio at the county council, said she had apologised for the ‘inapprop-riate comment’ but she was using ‘shorthand’ to colleagues as she was writing in a hurry.

She added: “I was trying to convey that certain members attempted to dominate proceed-ings and stayed away when the forum changed from purely racial equality to equalities such as age, gender and disability.”