A former police sergeant who was sacked after she found herself in a relationship with an armed robber has been declared mayor of her hometown, despite facing opposition. Jill Owens has been announced as mayor of Haverfordwest after fighting off opposition, in a process that is usually a formality.
Ms Owens had been deputy mayor and was due to take up the post of mayor in April but another councillor, Rhys Evans, broke tradition by also putting his name forward for the position. There had been no arguments against Ms Owens' suitability to take on the mayor role as per tradition, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Ms Owens came had previously come under fire 15 years ago when her relationship with an armed robber was revealed. She was "required to resign" from her role as a police sergeant with Dyfed-Powys Police in 2008 as a result of the relationship.
Read more: The police sergeant who lost her job because her boyfriend stole £339,000 in armed robberies
It was expected that Ms Owens would take on the role of mayor when the current mayor Alan Buckfield left his position in April. However, when applications for the 2023-24 mayor were announced at the town council's March meeting, Mr Evans name also appeared.
He claimed he had been "approached by several members of the community asking if I would stand as mayor," adding he thought "it would be negligent of me not to stand."
As the meeting - which resulted in the resignation of three councillors - descended into pandemonium, Ms Owens called the council's clerk "not impartial" and the current mayor a "disgrace to the town" for allowing a rival candidate to stand.
She said the decision to take additional nominations was against the advice of One Voice Wales, and that four councillors had pre-determined their vote by saying they would vote for Cllr Evans. “There is a procedure in place, for hundreds and hundreds of years in this town, this hasn’t happened before.”
She told the mayor: “You, as a council – mayor – are looking to ride roughshod over the Code of Conduct; you will be responsible to the Ombudsman.”
She later added: “I would just like to put on record you should be ashamed of yourself Mayor, you and the clerk have ignored advice. It’s disgusting the way you have conducted this,” adding: “You [Clerk Juliet Raymond] are a clerk on this council and you are not impartial.”
Former town councillor Peter Lewis was one of several former town mayors present as members of the public, along with county councillor Tim Evans.
Mr Lewis said: “This council is being asked for the first time in its history to break its own rules,” adding that he understood no other nominations could be received if the deputy mayor had offered to stand; a motion in the meeting itself being needed to overcome this.
Ms Owens said the way the process had been conducted was "disgusting". Despite his opposition, Mr Evans' bid to become mayor was defeated in a vote by council members.
After that vote failed, several councillors were seen leaving the meeting, with Councillor Richard Blacklaw-Jones, Councillor Gareth Roberts, and Councillor Rhys Evans formally resigning the following day.
Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Owens said: “It’s never, ever happened in 900 years; the town council of Haverfordwest needs to change, it needs to be more open and transparent, at the end of the day justice did prevail. “It wasn’t about me becoming mayor, it was about more being in the right place for the town, and that history continuing.”
Also speaking after the meeting, Mayor Alan Buckfield said: “I believe in democracy, I believe people have the right to express themselves in a proper and distinguished manner. The whole point of the debate was to test the standing order; to my mind the only way to test that was by voting.”
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