David
Beaumont
A Written
account of my 2nd Disciplinary Hearing
(after
almost 2 years of suspension)
My 2nd disciplinary ended abruptly last Wednesday,
shortly after it started. Immediately
on arrival Ian Rez and I were confronted by NEC member Judy Box in the chair
explaining there would be a part one of the meeting and a part two. Part one turned out to be NEC member Bob
Braddock accusing me of making some allegation against him, he couldn’t express
clearly what the allegation was, something about Braddock colluding with the General Secretary, or me implying
that Braddock had covered up the General Secretary’s actions. They handed us a copy of my web site with
this extract in it. I should add that I
choose and check the words on my web site very carefully:
“NEC
- £1/4 million well spent?
The National Executive Committee costs members around a quarter of a million
pounds a year to run (source: 1999 accounts). And people complain about the
cost of Annual Conference! See who are the most expensive NEC members for the
last 5 years. Guess who has claimed nearly £25,000? (It's Bob Braddock).
Coincidentally these high cost claimants are thought to be the most supportive
of General Secretary Roger Lyons, who spent up to £900,000
of members' money in payoffs to staff who blew the whistle on his own expense
claims. “
The web site article contains links to this graph as well as to
two Guardian newspaper articles:
They demanded to know if I thought Braddock would be
impartial. From the minutes in front of
us, I read out my statement at the beginning of my first hearing:
“David said he had no faith that the Disciplinary Panel would
distribute justice. He had seen what
the Disciplinary Panel had done with Sarah McDonald and thought the
Disciplinary Panel should be ashamed of what it had done.”
We also tried to point out that Ian and I had both spent half an
hour at the last meeting attempting to persuade the panel that they were not
impartial because they were sitting in judgement of their own decision to
suspend me: All the disciplinary panel members present had voted twice at NEC
meetings to suspend me. We clearly
added that the web site material was irrelevant and we did not consider that
was the reason the panel would not be impartial. Ian asked Braddock if he wasn’t a supporter of the General
Secretary and I asked him if he was denying his own expense claims. He refused to answer on both counts. They
promptly adjourned, came back with this statement and closed the meeting:
“Following the responses you gave to the Panel concerning the article on your website msfweb.org.uk mentioning Bob Braddock, the panel have reached the view that you have made it impossible for the Chair of this disciplinary panel to continue without being accused - at some point in time - of being less than partial due to your allegation. This matter will, therefore, be referred to the GP&FC on the 30th August 2001 and the Secretary of that Committee will let you know the outcome.”
I tried to
make a statement but when they refused to write it down I stopped.
My personal view is that they did this deliberately
and had no intention of having my disciplinary hearing. The figures for NEC members’
expense claims are publicly available from MSF’s Annual Returns and date back 5
years. I first collated them on the web
site on 23rd November 2000
and sent Braddock and the other NEC members an email telling them so and
that Braddock had come top, on that date.
As for the allegation that Braddock is a supporter of the General
Secretary, yes I can see that may be very offensive to some people and if it
were not true I would offer a grovelling apology. In summary it is disingenuous of them to claim that this has just
arisen and justifies another two month delay in me getting justice. In fact Braddock was aware of my website at
my first disciplinary hearing, when he made the un-minuted outburst, clearly heard by Ian and me, “You don’t see the websites I see”.
David
Beaumont 21.07.01
Suspended Treasurer London Regional Council 1999
Suspended Secretary Hounslow and Feltham Branch
1999
Suspended Chair Hounslow and Feltham Branch 2001,
2000
Suspended London Region Executive Committee member
2000
Suspended Delegate London Regional Council 2001,
2000
Suspended Annual Conference Delegate 2001, 2000
Suspended Visitor to Annual Conference 2000