COULD anyone enlighten me as to why whenever anyone has a go, for whatever reason at Councillor Carol Broad, she invariably reacts as though no one should be audacious enough to challenge her?

She now childishly claims that there is a witch-hunt against her simply because questions are being asked about the amount of expenses she has claimed for child care.

She maintains that she asked advice of officers which if this is the case then they should be called to answer for their actions. What strikes me as very odd though is that she has been a councillor for a number of years and has presumably claimed expenses over the years so she should be more familiar than even the officers as to how much she is entitled to. Despite this she appears to be the only councillor to have got it wrong.

No one would suggest for one moment that being a mother should stop her from being a councillor however, to pay your mother-in-law £18 of our money is disgraceful and far more than most qualified people earn. The question now is will she volunteer to pay this money back or will she be forced to do so. Will the standards committee also be looking at claims for previous years?

Parallels may be drawn with the Geoff Knight internet abuse story as he too claimed there was a witch-hunt against him. It now appears that he has admitted he did indeed access pornography though he maintains that it was by accident. I do not know much about computers but I know enough to realise this is highly implausible. One wonders if he may have possibly even entered his credit card details by mistake as much of this material is pay for view.

The point is that this scandal appears to have been swept under the carpet, the public have not been informed of the outcome of the investigation into him. They have a right to this information and also a right to expect a public apology for his lies and slurs. The question now is will there be a cover up of Councillor Broads case? I sincerely hope that the Citizen will ensure that the public are kept informed as I am sad to say that there is precious little chance of the towns othermain weekly paper doing so.

Steve Ormerod, South Grove, Morecambe