Viral sensation Jackie Weaver 'did not have the authority' to mute and boot councillors from a virtual meeting, a report has found. It comes after a Zoom meeting of Handforth Parish Council in Cheshire went viral in February 2021.
The meeting, which racked up millions of views, showed Ms Weaver ejecting the chairman after he questioned her "authority". The incident sparked rows and shouting from other participants.
Cheshire East Council, the unitary authority covering the area where Handforth Parish Council was based, has now found it understood why Ms Weaver acted as she did, reports BBC News. While Ms Weaver said "her jury was still out on that", adding there was little guidance on running virtual meetings.
The meeting of Handforth Parish Council, which has now been renamed as Handforth Town Council, included disruptive phone calls, councillors being ejected, and the now famous phrases "you have no authority here" and "read the standing orders, read them and understand them".
The BBC says Cheshire East has now released six reports after it investigated the behaviour of councillors at the meeting. The reports total 145 pages and include three examining incidents before the Zoom spat.
One reportedly said that Ms Weaver "was not acting in an official capacity at these meetings". It does though say Ms Weaver believed her actions were "necessary" given the behaviour of some elected members.
The external report stated: "Faced with what were unusual and difficult circumstances, and the deep-seated issues underpinning those circumstances, we can understand why Jackie Weaver acted as she did, despite her action being without any formal footing in terms of appropriate process and procedure."
Reacting to the reports, Ms Weaver told the broadcaster: "We were still very vague about how virtual council meetings worked and I did not actually remove them from the meeting, in my opinion, I moved them to the waiting room.
"A little later in the meeting, the remaining councillors voted to remove them. So I welcome the findings of the report but am deeply saddened that it took so long and cost so much to get there."
The reports also said that three former councillors were "on the balance of probability" in breach of the Code of Conduct for members. Some of these breaches referred to the viral meetings and others were in relation to long-standing issues at the council, which all stemmed from a disagreement over whether a councillor had left their seat or not.
A different report found three current councillors did not breach the code of conduct. The investigators said although they did not breach the code, "their behaviour cannot be said to be exemplary".
While no formal findings were made by Cheshire East due to three members resigning, the council has made the decision to publish the reports. A statement on behalf of some of the former councillors said that they did not accept the findings of the investigations and "do not recognise any of them as being valid".
"In terms of the findings of the reports, we wholly refute the findings and view them as being extreme fiction. The investigations were in our opinion conducted with more than an air of mendacity," they told the BBC. We did not, at any time, breach the code of conduct and now plan to fully contest these findings."
John Smith, the chairman of Handforth Town Council, said: "Although an earlier resolution would have been preferable, I congratulate Cheshire East Council legal officers for sticking with the investigation. Handforth Town Council is now getting on with supporting our great community, quietly and I hope, unobtrusively."
It had previously been reported the decision to investigate Handforth Parish Council had cost Cheshire East £85,000. A council spokesman said: "While the early stages of complaint investigation are confidential, once a final investigation report has been issued, there is a strong public interest in the disclosure of findings on conduct matters regarding holders of public office. This is especially so when the conduct alleged is serious in nature and occurred within the public domain."
