AN INVESTIGATION into a complaint against a councillor who was filming motorists cost the taxpayer more than £6,000, a meeting heard.

Three reports were carried out looking into the councillor after residents formally complained to BCP Council about his behaviour. 

One of the complaints was to do with the councillor filming motorists “that the subject councillor had recorded doing manoeuvres he considered to be unlawful and that he had reported to the police”. 

The videos were uploaded to YouTube and social media site Next Door, which the complainant said had breached the council’s code of conduct because faces and number plates were not blurred out. 

Another report made to the council claimed the councillor had failed to treat others with respect due to comments made on social media platform, X, previously known as Twitter. 

The report does not mention what the comments said. 

And the third report was after he described a local Conservative MP (at the time) as “basically useless” on Next Door. 

Details about what MP it was are also excluded from the report. 

BCP Council’s monitoring officer Janie Berry appointed Simon Goacher, head of local government at the London-based law firm Weightmans to undertake the independent investigation starting in April. 

The local authority was charged £6,218 for the three reports looking into alleged wrongdoing by the councillor, the meeting heard.

Chairwoman of BCP Council’s standards committee, Vanessa Ricketts, said: “It was necessary to seek additional supporting information from some of the respective complainants. 

“The final reports were received by the monitoring officer on August 20.” 

The complaints go back as far as December 2023, and it was claimed by the complainant the behaviour of the councillor had breached various codes of the code of conduct. 

Because they are public servants, councillors must follow the Seven Principles of Public Life, also known as the Nolan Principles. 

But the independent investigation found “no evidence” any codes had been breached by the councillor in his behaviour. 

BCP Council’s standards committee also ruled the councillor had done nothing wrong. 

The Echo has chosen not to name the councillor because he has done nothing wrong in the eyes of the council.