Falmouth Town Council, Zoe Young breach of code of conduct

Cllr Zoe Young, town councillor for the Falmouth Arwenack ward, has been found to have breached a number of articles of the code of conduct after complaints were made by the mayor, fellow councillors, their relatives, tall ship volunteers, security personnel and the Falmouth BID manager.

Clementine Neild, the daughter of Cllr Jude Robinson, told the adjudicator that the “continuous petty slander and bickering” was making Falmouth Town Council look like a “joke”.

She said she was “fed-up” with Cllr Young using a public platform to spread misinformation about her mother.

In her complaint about Cllr Young, Falmouth mayor Kirstie Edwards accused her of personally attacking her fellow councillors and undermining the mayor’s authority.

She said it had been embarrassing how much she has had to apologise for the Cllr Young’s behaviour, and it had made all councillors look unprofessional, and for her to appear to not to be in control of the chamber.

She said Cllr Young threatened her with the Equalities Act and/or discrimination if she did not agree to her demands.

She said Cllr Young made repeated posts on social media attacking the decisions of the council and the others and, more concerningly, personally attacking her fellow councillors.

Cllr Young told the inquiry Cllr Edwards complaint was “over-the-top”.

The inquiry was told that during the Tall Ships event last year Cllr Young had launched an “ugly verbal attack” on volunteers.

Mrs L McCelland who had volunteered at the event marshalling people queuing to go on the tall ships said Cllr Young had been “breathtakingly rude and offensive”.

In her complaint, she said on the second day a person, she later found to be Cllr Young, had turned up and bombarded Mrs McCelland’s colleague with a series of questions about the organisation of the event the previous day when there had been problems with the queueing system in an “intimidating” manner.

“The colleague did not to enter into a discussion,” she told the enquiry “the person then launched into an ugly verbal attack.

“She was breathtakingly rude and offensive, and to our amazement proceeded with the same routine with other volunteers and was finally asked by staff to stop and walked away."

After this incident Mrs McCelland said she asked her colleague who the person was, and was incredulous to hear that she was a town councillor and commented that this was surely not possible.

Another colleague then showed her an image on Google, clearly indicating that this was Cllr Zoe Young. Mrs McCelland has said she was “appalled”.

Cllr Young told the inquiry said that at no point during event did she intimidate or attempt to intimidate or show disrespect to anybody.

In her complaint Cllr Jude Robinson said she was of the opinion that allegations made by Cllr Young were libellous and amounted to a campaign of harassment.

As chair of the staffing committee at Falmouth Town Council, Councillor Louise Coley complained that she had been increasingly concerned about the effect of Cllr Young’s demands on Falmouth town council’s officers, particularly the town clerk who at times was spending 50 per cent of his working week dealing with Cllr Young.

A Mr K Phillips made a complaint that Cllr Young had "turned up" at a event control meeting about Tall Ships following the event.

“After being given some latitude and time to speak, the Subject Member was asked to stop speaking and leave by the ship’s liaison officer lead as her tone had become patronising and was undermining the management team, also the meeting needed to progress,” he told the inquiry.

Mr Phillips said during the rest of the evening, Cllr Young made several trips in and out of the event, one time bringing her dog, another bringing her cycle.

When she was told it was unacceptable she argued with the security and volunteer team that she should be allowed in as she was a councillor for Falmouth Town Council.

After the meeting had finished and closed after 8pm, he said Cllr Young returned on her bicycle and was dissuaded her from re-entering the site as there no reason for her to be there, they didn’t know why she wanted to come back.

Falmouth BID manager Richard Wilcox complained that Cllr Young had attempted to undermine the "credibility, ability and morale" of the organising team and the running of the Tall Ships event and had damaged the professional integrity of Falmouth Town Council, the underwriters of Tall Ships 2023.

He said her divisive posts on social media were intended to antagonise and inflame opinion. She antagonised docks entrance site security staff in an attempt to enter the site without a ticket.

Simon Mansell, who carried out an assessment of the complaints for Cornwall Council, found that Cllr Young’s actions had fallen below what was expected under the town council’s Code of Conduct in that she failed to treat others with respect.

He said he had particular concerns about online posts made by her and the way she had interacted with officers, particularly the town council clerk Mark Williams and then with councillors Edwards and Robinson.

However he said he did not find she had sought or set out to intimidate anyone.

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He said this was someone who was exceeding their powers and as a result was trying to do the right thing in the wrong way.

He also found that by trying to re-enter the site, as she did, and saying that she was a Falmouth Town Councillor when trying to gain access with a dog and a bicycle, that she had sought to use her position to gain an advantage which would not have been open to a member of the public and therefore has breached 2.11 of the code.

He found that she had brought her office, but not her authority, into disrepute breaching 2.10 of the code.

“It is clear to me that the subject member has breached all four sections of the Code of Conduct, 2.1, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.10 having demonstrated a lack of respect for her colleagues and bringing her office and Council into disrepute,” he said in his findings.

“I also consider that her behaviour at the Tall Ships by her insistence on returning to emphasise her opinions in public bordered on bullying behaviour, and I find this a breach of 2.3 of the Code. This behaviour is contrary to that expected in the Code of Conduct.

He said that Cllr Young should apologise for her conduct to Cllr Edwards, Cllr Robinson, Clementine Neild and the event organisers of Tall Ships.

He also recommended to the council that Cllr Young is not considered as the lead member for any events the council may organise until after the elections in May 2025.

That the town council should put in place a system by which Cllr Young can speak and/or meet with the clerk or a nominated representative at fixed times only.

He also recommend that Cllr Young should not have direct access to other officers, other than her point of contact.

Falmouth Town Council says it will consider the findings at its next meeting on March 11.

In a statement issued to the Packet it said: “Town Councillors commit to and are bound by the Code of Conduct and under the Standards regime the complaints investigation into whether the Code had been breached was an external process to the Town Council. We will consider the outcome recommendations at the next meeting of the Council.”

Cllr Young told the Packet she had a lot to say about the findings which she would do.