No further action on Peter Charon complaints

The Standards Committee said it could not justify spending any more money or time investigating the three complaints, given that Mr Charon was no longer a councillor and no sanctions could be imposed on him.

The three complaints were levelled against Mr Charon when he was still a member of Bournemouth council. Two were complaints made by former Conservative colleagues while the other case concerned his failure to comply with a previous decision of the Standards Committee.

The assessment sub-committee decided it was not in the public interest to take further action on any of the three complaints.

Standards Committee chairman Roy Wardle said: “In reaching these decisions we had regard to Mr Charon’s interests as the subject of the three outstanding complaints and also to his decision to resign as a councillor before the complaints process had been completed.

“We also had regard to the interests of the three councillors who had made the complaints alleging that former councillor Charon had breached the council’s code of conduct.

“We also took account of the £7,832 costs to date and time spent to date by the council in dealing with the three complaints and the additional costs and time that would have to be spent in bringing all three cases to a final conclusion.

“Mr Charon would have had the opportunity to clear himself of breaching the code of conduct were he still a councillor. However if the Standards Committee had found that Mr Charon had breached the code no sanctions could be imposed due to his resignation as a councillor.

“In this regard we took note that Mr Charon prior to his resignation had suffered the loss of his position as leader of the Conservative group and council leader, an outcome that exceeded any sanctions the Standards Committee had powers to impose.

“In all the circumstances there were clear public interest reasons for taking no further action.”