Tories continue running Waveney Council on the vote of a "politically cynical" criminal

Cllr Andrew Draper who refuses to resign

I wrote on this blog before about the outrageous case of then Tory Waveney District councillor Andrew Draper who not only drove his car three times over the legal limit but then assaulted a police officer when caught even screaming at the Police "don't you know I'm a councillor". He received what appears to be an extremely lenient sentence of a £850 fine and driving ban.

Initially he did nothing other than resign his Cabinet post on the council but after an outcry he resigned as a member of the Tory party and now allegedly sits as an independent or a "condependant" as they are known in Suffolk!

Of course what is important in this case is that the political control of Waveney is in the balance after the Tories lost control at the May 2011 elections but have managed to cling to power on the casting vote of Chairman as my post on Ashes Democracy explains.

The Evening Start tonight reports that the Council's Standards Committee have decided that it is powerless to act despite finding that his behaviour was "entirely inappropriate". The issue appears to be that he was not oficially "on duty" at the time. However the Standards Committee were clearly unimpressed by Andrew Draper's failure to do the decent thing and resign finding that: 

The assessment sub-committee is clear however that in their opinion Councillor Draper has not yet taken appropriate action.

Further, his resignation from the Conservative Party is irrelevant. His switch to become an Independent Councillor is politically cynical and it fails to show proper respect to his electorate.

In the opinion of the assessment sub-committee the only proper course of action would be for Councillor Draper to now resign fully as a Councillor and put the matter back before the Worlingham electorate.

Until he does resign the fact is that Waveney District Council's Tory administration is now propped up not only by the Chairman's casting vote but the vote of a "politically cynical" so-called independent councillor who is a convicted criminal. This is a shameful situation and Waveney Tories and Andrew Draper need to do the decent thing as the current situation is showing a complete lack of respect for the electorate.