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Belfast Live
Belfast Live
National
Brendan Hughes

Ex-Belfast councillor Jolene Bunting had £2,500 deducted from wages for exceeding phone data limit

Ex-Belfast councillor Jolene Bunting had more than £2,500 deducted from her council wages over 14 months for exceeding the data limit on her mobile phone.

The overspend reached a point where a council official contacted Ms Bunting to work out a payment plan to spread the cost over a number of months.

A cap was also placed on her contract to limit her data usage but less than two months later she requested its removal, according to the staff member.

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Text messages Ms Bunting sent to Britain First leader Paul Golding are also revealed in a report from a standards watchdog which banned her from becoming a councillor again for three years.

It imposed the sanction last month after it found Ms Bunting doctored a council payslip to claim cash from the far-right group.

Mr Golding had sent her money after she allegedly told him she had been "fined" by the council over a "stunt" involving former deputy leader Jayda Fransen sitting in the lord mayor's chair.

But a hearing was told a £545.38 deduction in Ms Bunting's council pay in June 2018 was actually because she had exceeded her phone data allowance.

An Assistant Commissioner said Ms Bunting had "improperly used her position to secure financial advantage".

Ms Bunting was elected in 2014 as a TUV candidate but left the party in 2017 and continued at city hall as an independent until she lost her seat in 2019.

She had received an annual wage of £14,200 as an elected representative and used a mobile phone provided by the council.

When she exceeded the data usage limits in the phone contract, the charges were deducted automatically from her councillor allowance on a monthly basis.

Between September 2017 and October 2018, Ms Bunting had £2,561 deducted from her monthly allowance for phone repayments.

The largest deduction in a single month was £650.18 in July 2018, according to the watchdog report.

A witness statement from a council official said that in late June that year after discussions with Ms Bunting, he requested for a data cap to be placed on her account.

The following month after Ms Bunting disputed deductions in her July pay, the official contacted her "to work out a payment plan to spread the cost over a period of months".

He said Ms Bunting "asked that the cap be lifted on August 3 2018 as she had already used the contracted data allowance at that point".

In July 2018, Ms Bunting received two payments authorised by Mr Golding from a Britain First account named "Patriot Merchandise".

The watchdog report detailed text messages Ms Bunting sent to Mr Golding around this time appearing to ask about the payments.

They included, "We're (sic) you able to put something in Paul?", as well as, "Let me know when you have chum. I'm not going to have signal."

Mr Golding complained to the local government standards watchdog after saying he learned Ms Bunting had not been fined over the Jayda Fransen incident. He has since submitted a complaint to the PSNI.

Ms Bunting did not attend the watchdog hearing, but in earlier interviews with investigators rejected Mr Golding's allegations and denied doctoring the payslip.

In a lengthy statement issued after the proceedings, Ms Bunting described it as a "vexatious case".

She is seeking to judicially review the Local Government Commissioner for Standards for not adjourning the case after she said she was "unable to secure legal representation".

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