Court Proceedings against Hastings & Rother Rainbow Alliance's Trustees
Statement
Confusion arises from time to time with people mistakenly believing that the Hastings & Rother Gay Helpline (founded in 1987) and the Hastings & Rother Rainbow Alliance (founded in 2003) are the same organisation when in fact they are totally independent of each other. For this reason, the Helpline feels that there is a need to publicly state that it was ten trustees of the Hastings & Rother Rainbow Alliance who had civil court proceedings commenced against them in 2013.
So that there can be no possible doubts arising as to the identity of those persons who were served with court summonses the names of HRRA’s trustees who were involved are listed below –
Dave Burke , Julie Eason, Mary Benton, Abigail Luthman, Barbara Martin, Gary Rolfe, Ben Sallows, Nadine West, Marie Walton & Rachael Young.
So that there can be no possible doubts arising as to the identity of those persons who were served with court summonses the names of HRRA’s trustees who were involved are listed below –
Dave Burke , Julie Eason, Mary Benton, Abigail Luthman, Barbara Martin, Gary Rolfe, Ben Sallows, Nadine West, Marie Walton & Rachael Young.
A personal statement by Paul Broadhurst, Chairman of the Helpline
The reason that court proceedings were commenced against HRRA’s trustees relate to actions by them and Hastings Borough Council that involved defamation of my character (a solicitor’s opinion) by Dave Burke, then HRRA’s acting chair, in which Julie Eason, then a trustee and later co-chair was involved, and was a claim for damages in respect of the considerable and proven harm I had suffered (and still do) and financial losses I had incurred as a consequence of the actions of HRRA trustees.
This matter was formerly sub judice, which meant that the details could not be published whilst legal proceedings, now in abeyance, were underway. I now firmly believe that it is in the interests of supporters of the Helpline, members of HRRA, residents of Hastings & St. Leonards, and justice if the facts of what took place are made publicly known.
The statement that follows has, as a consequence of what I consider to be the totally unacceptable past and recent conduct of a former HRRA trustee, to be considerably more detailed than would otherwise have been the case.
The defamation of my character occurred as a direct consequence of a letter of enquiry that I wrote in my capacity as chairman of the Hastings & Rother Gay Helpline and on its behalf to Hastings Borough Council enquiring about its hire policy for St. Mary-in-the-Castle being disclosed to Julie Eason without my consent and knowledge.
Untrue, serious, and extremely damaging allegations were then made on HRRA's behalf by Dave Burke, who made his allegations despite having admitted that he had not read my letter and had only been told about it ( I later discovered that he had been told about it by Julie Eason). One of the false allegations was that my letter had caused a request made by Julie Eason to the Council on HRRA's behalf for the free use of St. Mary's to be rejected with the others being that I had written in terms implying that there were splits within HRRA and between HRRA and the Helpline.
In the opinion of the solicitor that the Helpline was eventually forced to consult because I was unable to clear my name of the lies and smears against me, and who read a copy of my letter to the Council, there was no justification whatsoever for the Council’s actions in disclosing my letter to HRRA, but the Council has been totally unwilling to confirm or to deny that the disclosure took place. The nearest the Council has come to an admission is in a letter to me from the Council's Solicitor in which she has sought to justify what took place by writing "...even if the Council had disclosed your letter the disclosure would not have constituted (in the Ombudsman's opinion) an administrative fault."
I had made a complaint to the Ombudsman because repeated requests to the Council for an investigation to be held to ascertain who had disclosed my letter to HRRA, and to be told what had been said about it and why were eliciting no positive responses whatsoever.
The statement attributed to the Ombudsman by the Council's Solicitor was actually made by a junior investigator in the Local Government Ombudsman's Office who was unwilling to investigate my complaints about the actions of Hastings Borough Council from the outset, and whose letters to me clearly indicated either an inability or an unwillingness to comprehend the most simple of statements that he was told. Despite being told that the Council's actions in disclosing my letter had led to defamation of my character, and that was not my personal opinion but that of a solicitor, the investigator still claimed that no harm appeared to have been caused by the Council's actions.
It is surely reasonable nowadays to expect a council to be accountable for its actions and to be open and transparent in its dealings. If Hastings Borough Council ever embraced these ethics they clearly abandoned them in this instance. I cannot help but wonder if the council was not Labour-controlled and Julie Eason not been a Labour Party activist (who formerly had ambitions to be Hastings' next MP but was not selected as the PPC) if my valid complaints to the Council might have been dealt with very differently.
After my letter to the Council was received it was almost immediately disclosed by the recipient, Simon Hubbard, Director for Regeneration to Julie Eason ( stated to be so by HRRA’s trustees in a legal document) with this being even before a reply had been sent to me, and following the unjustified disclosure, the false allegations were then made by Dave Burke about the consequences for HRRA of my writing in the terms in which I had.
The allegations were a tissue of lies, and made after Julie Eason had been told by the Council that her request for the free use of St. Mary's had been rejected because no new bookings of any kind for the venue were being taken. I was suffering at the time from serious ill health which HRRA's trustees were fully aware of, and I was deliberately made a scapegoat for something that I had not done and could not possibly have done in order I believe to save face for Julie Eason with HRRA's trustees whom she had led to believe that her request stood a very good chance of being accepted when the reality was that there had existed no possibility whatsoever.
Although the allegations were made by Dave Burke, he lacked I consider any apparent motivation to have made them, but I consider that Julie Eason did harbour an unjustified grievance against me because of my previously expressed opposition to her being appointed a co-chair of HRRA within only a few months of being appointed a trustee.
The following is the background to my letter to the Council being written.
On 12th August 2012 a meeting was held of HRRA’s trustees of which I was then one and that I was unable to attend through illness. Fund-raising, in which I was in favour, was discussed during the meeting, and I then received along with HRRA’s other trustees an email from Julie Eason, the following of which is an extract –
From: julie@esap.org.uk
Subject: Final bit of news from me today
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:53:50 +0000
I have spoken to Nicky Mitchell , and she is very up for helping us to organise a fundraising event to mark our 10th anniversary.
I think we should invite Nicky to come and talk to us about this at our next committee meeting (are we having one in September? - and could someone please remind me of the date of the AGM, I have 2 dates written down and can't remember which was correct!). Nicky is a performer, and runs a lot of VCS events, she is also organising the women's tent at Brighton Pride this year. She has suggested that the first thing to do is to sweet talk the council into giving us St Marys in the Castle for free, so I am going to have a word with Simon Hubbard at the council and canvass the possibility of that, on a without prejudice basis.
Julie
Statement – resumed
Julie Eason had decided of her own volition to contact Simon Hubbard when clearly a decision as to whether or not she should do so was one that the full HRRA committee should have had an opportunity to first discuss.
Although St. Mary’s is a council-owned building it has never been a council-operated one, and in August 2012 it was widely known in Hastings that the current tenant’s lease which was due to expire on 31st August was not being renewed and that a new tenant had not been found.
The Council’s Cabinet was due to meet on 10th September to consider a report on St. Mary’s future, and the Council had publicly announced that in the meantime no new bookings of any kind were being taken.
Julie Eason’s request was one that the Council could not possibly grant, and I emailed her and other trustees of HRRA the day after receiving her message and said that for a variety of reasons it was inadvisable for the request to be made and that I believed an alternative venue should be sought.
Later that day I received two emails from Julie Eason that she copied to HRRA’s other trustees, and in which she wrote in the first –
From: julie@esap.org.uk
Subject: RE: Final bit of news from me today
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 19:11:10 +0000
Dear Paul,
I spoke to Simon Hubbard yesterday, he thinks we have a very good chance of getting St Mary;'s in teh castle free of charge, he asked me to put our request in writing, which I did, and he is canvassing inside the council for us.
Will keep you all posted on how we get on. Failing that, I suggest we look using the Town Hall, but that would limit numbers.
Julie
Julie Eason
Partnership & Strategy Manager
East Sussex Advice Plus
01424 552357
Second email
From: julie@esap.org.uk
Subject: RE: Thoughts on venues for fundraiser
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 20:20:23 +0000
My sense from Simon is that one way or another, the council would really like to help us, so fingers crossed on that one. Failing that, I have a good personal relationship with the Chief Executive of the County Council, so we could perhaps start looking at the library though I think access is an issue so that may rule than one out.
We'll have a response from Simon Hubbard by the time we meet, if the answer is a no, I'll go back and ask about the Town Hall, so we at least have a sense of what could and would not, be possible. The Council Chamber only takes around, I think 100, from memory of when I held an event there, but we could look to use more than one room perhaps.....there are some other big rooms upstairs.... and a lift I think
I'll ask Nicky to come to the beginning of the committee meeting unless anyone objects, and can sort it all out there.
Julie
Statement – resumed
Simon Hubbard, the person to whom Julie Eason made her request, is the Director for Regeneration and one of Hastings Borough Council’s most senior officers.
The HRRA committee meeting to which Julie Eason referred in her email of 18th August was scheduled to take place on 3rd September, and she said that she expected a decision about her request by then, with, she had claimed, a positive response likely, yet the Council’s Cabinet was not meeting to discuss a report on St. Mary’s future until 10th September.
If Julie Eason was going to be given a decision about her request a full week before the Cabinet meeting then a decision on St. Mary’s future must already have been made in secret with the alternative being that something seriously untoward was going on.
I was astonished by Julie Eason’s comments which seemed truly extraordinary because I personally knew people who that same week had made requests to book St. Mary’s and were willing to pay a hire fee but had been told that no new bookings of any kind were being taken, yet here was a senior Council officer apparently telling Julie Eason that her request for the free use of St. Mary’s ‘stood a very good chance’ of being granted and that he was going to 'canvass' within the Council.
Why Julie Eason was being told one thing and other enquirers something very different was a matter of great concern to me and would, I am sure, have been to others if they were aware of the situation.
The Helpline was celebrating its 25th anniversary the following month and was paying a fee for a booking of the Stade Hall, but we would have welcomed the free use of St. Mary's, and I wrote the letter below to Simon Hubbard seeking clarification of the Council’s policy for the hire of St. Mary’s in light of what Julie Eason claimed he had told her.
This matter was formerly sub judice, which meant that the details could not be published whilst legal proceedings, now in abeyance, were underway. I now firmly believe that it is in the interests of supporters of the Helpline, members of HRRA, residents of Hastings & St. Leonards, and justice if the facts of what took place are made publicly known.
The statement that follows has, as a consequence of what I consider to be the totally unacceptable past and recent conduct of a former HRRA trustee, to be considerably more detailed than would otherwise have been the case.
The defamation of my character occurred as a direct consequence of a letter of enquiry that I wrote in my capacity as chairman of the Hastings & Rother Gay Helpline and on its behalf to Hastings Borough Council enquiring about its hire policy for St. Mary-in-the-Castle being disclosed to Julie Eason without my consent and knowledge.
Untrue, serious, and extremely damaging allegations were then made on HRRA's behalf by Dave Burke, who made his allegations despite having admitted that he had not read my letter and had only been told about it ( I later discovered that he had been told about it by Julie Eason). One of the false allegations was that my letter had caused a request made by Julie Eason to the Council on HRRA's behalf for the free use of St. Mary's to be rejected with the others being that I had written in terms implying that there were splits within HRRA and between HRRA and the Helpline.
In the opinion of the solicitor that the Helpline was eventually forced to consult because I was unable to clear my name of the lies and smears against me, and who read a copy of my letter to the Council, there was no justification whatsoever for the Council’s actions in disclosing my letter to HRRA, but the Council has been totally unwilling to confirm or to deny that the disclosure took place. The nearest the Council has come to an admission is in a letter to me from the Council's Solicitor in which she has sought to justify what took place by writing "...even if the Council had disclosed your letter the disclosure would not have constituted (in the Ombudsman's opinion) an administrative fault."
I had made a complaint to the Ombudsman because repeated requests to the Council for an investigation to be held to ascertain who had disclosed my letter to HRRA, and to be told what had been said about it and why were eliciting no positive responses whatsoever.
The statement attributed to the Ombudsman by the Council's Solicitor was actually made by a junior investigator in the Local Government Ombudsman's Office who was unwilling to investigate my complaints about the actions of Hastings Borough Council from the outset, and whose letters to me clearly indicated either an inability or an unwillingness to comprehend the most simple of statements that he was told. Despite being told that the Council's actions in disclosing my letter had led to defamation of my character, and that was not my personal opinion but that of a solicitor, the investigator still claimed that no harm appeared to have been caused by the Council's actions.
It is surely reasonable nowadays to expect a council to be accountable for its actions and to be open and transparent in its dealings. If Hastings Borough Council ever embraced these ethics they clearly abandoned them in this instance. I cannot help but wonder if the council was not Labour-controlled and Julie Eason not been a Labour Party activist (who formerly had ambitions to be Hastings' next MP but was not selected as the PPC) if my valid complaints to the Council might have been dealt with very differently.
After my letter to the Council was received it was almost immediately disclosed by the recipient, Simon Hubbard, Director for Regeneration to Julie Eason ( stated to be so by HRRA’s trustees in a legal document) with this being even before a reply had been sent to me, and following the unjustified disclosure, the false allegations were then made by Dave Burke about the consequences for HRRA of my writing in the terms in which I had.
The allegations were a tissue of lies, and made after Julie Eason had been told by the Council that her request for the free use of St. Mary's had been rejected because no new bookings of any kind for the venue were being taken. I was suffering at the time from serious ill health which HRRA's trustees were fully aware of, and I was deliberately made a scapegoat for something that I had not done and could not possibly have done in order I believe to save face for Julie Eason with HRRA's trustees whom she had led to believe that her request stood a very good chance of being accepted when the reality was that there had existed no possibility whatsoever.
Although the allegations were made by Dave Burke, he lacked I consider any apparent motivation to have made them, but I consider that Julie Eason did harbour an unjustified grievance against me because of my previously expressed opposition to her being appointed a co-chair of HRRA within only a few months of being appointed a trustee.
The following is the background to my letter to the Council being written.
On 12th August 2012 a meeting was held of HRRA’s trustees of which I was then one and that I was unable to attend through illness. Fund-raising, in which I was in favour, was discussed during the meeting, and I then received along with HRRA’s other trustees an email from Julie Eason, the following of which is an extract –
From: julie@esap.org.uk
Subject: Final bit of news from me today
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:53:50 +0000
I have spoken to Nicky Mitchell , and she is very up for helping us to organise a fundraising event to mark our 10th anniversary.
I think we should invite Nicky to come and talk to us about this at our next committee meeting (are we having one in September? - and could someone please remind me of the date of the AGM, I have 2 dates written down and can't remember which was correct!). Nicky is a performer, and runs a lot of VCS events, she is also organising the women's tent at Brighton Pride this year. She has suggested that the first thing to do is to sweet talk the council into giving us St Marys in the Castle for free, so I am going to have a word with Simon Hubbard at the council and canvass the possibility of that, on a without prejudice basis.
Julie
Statement – resumed
Julie Eason had decided of her own volition to contact Simon Hubbard when clearly a decision as to whether or not she should do so was one that the full HRRA committee should have had an opportunity to first discuss.
Although St. Mary’s is a council-owned building it has never been a council-operated one, and in August 2012 it was widely known in Hastings that the current tenant’s lease which was due to expire on 31st August was not being renewed and that a new tenant had not been found.
The Council’s Cabinet was due to meet on 10th September to consider a report on St. Mary’s future, and the Council had publicly announced that in the meantime no new bookings of any kind were being taken.
Julie Eason’s request was one that the Council could not possibly grant, and I emailed her and other trustees of HRRA the day after receiving her message and said that for a variety of reasons it was inadvisable for the request to be made and that I believed an alternative venue should be sought.
Later that day I received two emails from Julie Eason that she copied to HRRA’s other trustees, and in which she wrote in the first –
From: julie@esap.org.uk
Subject: RE: Final bit of news from me today
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 19:11:10 +0000
Dear Paul,
I spoke to Simon Hubbard yesterday, he thinks we have a very good chance of getting St Mary;'s in teh castle free of charge, he asked me to put our request in writing, which I did, and he is canvassing inside the council for us.
Will keep you all posted on how we get on. Failing that, I suggest we look using the Town Hall, but that would limit numbers.
Julie
Julie Eason
Partnership & Strategy Manager
East Sussex Advice Plus
01424 552357
Second email
From: julie@esap.org.uk
Subject: RE: Thoughts on venues for fundraiser
Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2012 20:20:23 +0000
My sense from Simon is that one way or another, the council would really like to help us, so fingers crossed on that one. Failing that, I have a good personal relationship with the Chief Executive of the County Council, so we could perhaps start looking at the library though I think access is an issue so that may rule than one out.
We'll have a response from Simon Hubbard by the time we meet, if the answer is a no, I'll go back and ask about the Town Hall, so we at least have a sense of what could and would not, be possible. The Council Chamber only takes around, I think 100, from memory of when I held an event there, but we could look to use more than one room perhaps.....there are some other big rooms upstairs.... and a lift I think
I'll ask Nicky to come to the beginning of the committee meeting unless anyone objects, and can sort it all out there.
Julie
Statement – resumed
Simon Hubbard, the person to whom Julie Eason made her request, is the Director for Regeneration and one of Hastings Borough Council’s most senior officers.
The HRRA committee meeting to which Julie Eason referred in her email of 18th August was scheduled to take place on 3rd September, and she said that she expected a decision about her request by then, with, she had claimed, a positive response likely, yet the Council’s Cabinet was not meeting to discuss a report on St. Mary’s future until 10th September.
If Julie Eason was going to be given a decision about her request a full week before the Cabinet meeting then a decision on St. Mary’s future must already have been made in secret with the alternative being that something seriously untoward was going on.
I was astonished by Julie Eason’s comments which seemed truly extraordinary because I personally knew people who that same week had made requests to book St. Mary’s and were willing to pay a hire fee but had been told that no new bookings of any kind were being taken, yet here was a senior Council officer apparently telling Julie Eason that her request for the free use of St. Mary’s ‘stood a very good chance’ of being granted and that he was going to 'canvass' within the Council.
Why Julie Eason was being told one thing and other enquirers something very different was a matter of great concern to me and would, I am sure, have been to others if they were aware of the situation.
The Helpline was celebrating its 25th anniversary the following month and was paying a fee for a booking of the Stade Hall, but we would have welcomed the free use of St. Mary's, and I wrote the letter below to Simon Hubbard seeking clarification of the Council’s policy for the hire of St. Mary’s in light of what Julie Eason claimed he had told her.
Statement - resumed
I believe that to enquire if HRRA was being made a special case and if so why was reasonable if it was the case that the free use of St. Mary's was not going to be granted to other voluntary organisations.
Following the disclosure of my letter, Dave Burke made the first two of the allegations below and without by his own admission having seen my letter, and eight of HRRA's trustees (excluding Marie Walton & Rachael Young) jointly made the last two untrue allegations in their defences to my court claim against them and in respect of which they had each signed a declaration that they believed their statements to be true.
The false allegations
Statement - resumed
Following the disclosure of my letter, Dave Burke made the first two of the allegations below and without by his own admission having seen my letter, and eight of HRRA's trustees (excluding Marie Walton & Rachael Young) jointly made the last two untrue allegations in their defences to my court claim against them and in respect of which they had each signed a declaration that they believed their statements to be true.
The false allegations
- That my letter was written in such terms that it caused the request for the free use of St. Mary's by Julie Eason to be rejected.(Letters to me from Hastings Borough Council officers are proof that it did not and never could have had that consequence. Furthermore, one letter states that HRRA (Julie Eason) was told that Julie Eason's request was rejected because no new bookings were being taken).
- That my letter was extremely damaging in that it implied there were splits between HRRA and the Helpline
- That my letter questioned if it was proper for the Council to grant Julie Eason's request
- That my letter 'purported', in the sense that it pretended, to have been written on behalf of the Helpline
Statement - resumed
The Helpline's letter to Simon Hubbard was hand delivered to Hastings Town Hall mid-morning on Monday, 20th August, and the following afternoon I was sent the following email from Dave Burke, then HRRA's acting chair
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 17:10:29 +0100
From: daveburke@
Subject: Writing on behalf of HRRA
To: paul.broadhurst@
hi Paul
i hope that your health is reasonably ok?
I'm contacting you on behalf of HRRA because I've been told that you have written a letter as a Trustee of HRRA without first checking with anyone at HRRA.
I find this hard to believe and so am seeking clarification.
regards
Dave
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2012 17:10:29 +0100
From: daveburke@
Subject: Writing on behalf of HRRA
To: paul.broadhurst@
hi Paul
i hope that your health is reasonably ok?
I'm contacting you on behalf of HRRA because I've been told that you have written a letter as a Trustee of HRRA without first checking with anyone at HRRA.
I find this hard to believe and so am seeking clarification.
regards
Dave
Statement - resumed
My health was not at all 'reasonably o.k' and I was caused considerable distress and my health suffered as a direct consequence of the receipt of this and subsequent emails form Dave Burke.
I found it hard to believe that someone had untruthfully alleged that I had written a letter on behalf of HRRA because I had never done so at any time, and I replied as follows
From: paul.broadhurst@
To: daveburke@
Subject: RE: Writing on behalf of HRRA
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:01:50 +0100
Hello Dave
Unfortunately the health problems I have are something of a vicious circle with one impacting on another, and it's a case of trying to juggle various medications to try to solve the issues. The stress that I've been put under in recent days has made matters worse, and so is having to respond now to the allegation that you tell me has been made about me.
If someone has claimed to HRRA that I've written a letter in my capacity as a trustee they must have said who the letter was sent to, what it was about, and when written, so please supply that information and then I'll be able to respond to your query.
After I receive the information I assure you that I will either confirm or deny whether or not I have written such a letter, but without it I clearly cannot be expected to do so.
I feel that I'm being asked to confirm or deny if I've committed an offence, but without even being told what has given rise to the suspicion that I may have done so, and that cannot be regarded as acceptable.
Regards
Paul
From: paul.broadhurst@
To: daveburke@
Subject: RE: Writing on behalf of HRRA
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2012 00:01:50 +0100
Hello Dave
Unfortunately the health problems I have are something of a vicious circle with one impacting on another, and it's a case of trying to juggle various medications to try to solve the issues. The stress that I've been put under in recent days has made matters worse, and so is having to respond now to the allegation that you tell me has been made about me.
If someone has claimed to HRRA that I've written a letter in my capacity as a trustee they must have said who the letter was sent to, what it was about, and when written, so please supply that information and then I'll be able to respond to your query.
After I receive the information I assure you that I will either confirm or deny whether or not I have written such a letter, but without it I clearly cannot be expected to do so.
I feel that I'm being asked to confirm or deny if I've committed an offence, but without even being told what has given rise to the suspicion that I may have done so, and that cannot be regarded as acceptable.
Regards
Paul
Statement -resumed
I did not receive a reply to my email to Dave Burke, and he then wrote the following email in which he claimed to have had no response from me
to Roger Sweetman, secretary of the Helpline.
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2012 10:17:57 +0100
From: daveburke@
Subject: Re: Paul
To: roger.sweetman@
Roger
I'm not sure of the best way to approach this but I'm writing to you informally as the best person to help.
I understand that Paul has written to Hastings BC both as a Trustee of HRRA (even though he had previously resigned) and as Chair of the Gay Helpline in
a way which it seems prevented HRRA obtaining a venue for a fund-raising event.We have therefore lost the opportunity.
More importantly he seems to have indicated that there is a split in HRRA and possibly between HHRA and the Gay Helpline. i'm sure I don't need to tell you how damaging such a suggestion could be.
I've written by email to Paul asking for his account of the facts (I haven't seen his letter) but he has not replied.Given his state of health, I do not want to ask him again.
I wonder if you could use your influence to help settle this with the least possible damage?
i haven't spoken to anyone within HHRA about this (however Julie Eason was involved) but clearly I need to give them some explanation at some time soon.
Kind regards
Dave Burke
to Roger Sweetman, secretary of the Helpline.
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2012 10:17:57 +0100
From: daveburke@
Subject: Re: Paul
To: roger.sweetman@
Roger
I'm not sure of the best way to approach this but I'm writing to you informally as the best person to help.
I understand that Paul has written to Hastings BC both as a Trustee of HRRA (even though he had previously resigned) and as Chair of the Gay Helpline in
a way which it seems prevented HRRA obtaining a venue for a fund-raising event.We have therefore lost the opportunity.
More importantly he seems to have indicated that there is a split in HRRA and possibly between HHRA and the Gay Helpline. i'm sure I don't need to tell you how damaging such a suggestion could be.
I've written by email to Paul asking for his account of the facts (I haven't seen his letter) but he has not replied.Given his state of health, I do not want to ask him again.
I wonder if you could use your influence to help settle this with the least possible damage?
i haven't spoken to anyone within HHRA about this (however Julie Eason was involved) but clearly I need to give them some explanation at some time soon.
Kind regards
Dave Burke
Statement - resumed
Dave Burke said that he needed to inform the committee soon why Julie Eason's request for the free use of St. Mary's had been rejected, but Julie Eason had already been told by the Council the reason that her request was rejected and which was because no new bookings of any kind were being taken (I was unaware at the time that this was what she had been told, but it was later stated to be so in letters to me from the Council and copied later in this statement).
Either Julie Eason had not been honest with Dave Burke as to the true reason for her request being rejected when she told him that it had, or he or the both of them had decided to make me the scapegoat for the rejection of the request.
Julie Eason's request for the free use of St. Mary's was made to Hastings Borough Council without any prior discussion of the HRRA committee, and was one of other decisions that had been made by a minority of the committee without consulting or involving other trustees.
Although Julie Eason had only became a trustee of HRRA a few months earlier, she had expressed a desire to become a joint-chair of HRRA (a post that did not even then exist, it had to be created so she could occupy it ) during the meeting held that I was unable to attend because of illness earlier that month.
The agenda for that meeting had made no mention of the creation of the posts of co-chairs, which was a legal requirement, and the first that I knew about the matter was when I received the minutes of the meeting.
I hardly knew Julie Eason, and had formed no significant personal opinions about her, but I firmly believed that her proposed appointment as a co-chair would be contrary to the interests of HRRA for the reasons that I considered it unnecessary and that such an arrangement would be unworkable in practice, so I expressed opposition to her appointment, but it was made clear to me by other trustees that the matter was a fait accomplii, and there would be no discussion whatsoever about the matter at any committee meeting.
Refusing to discuss matters of importance is no way for a charity to conduct business, and after delivering the Helpline's letter to the Town Hall I decided that as I was the only trustee who had expressed any concerns about Julie Eason's request to the Council for the free use of St. Mary's being made that my position as a trustee had become untenable.
I had previously decided that I would not stand for re-election at the forthcoming AGM, and I was frankly so disgusted with HRRA, an organisation of which I was a founder member but considered had seriously lost its way, that I resigned as a trustee that evening, and made the reasons for my resignation known in emails to the other trustees.
Nadine West, a fellow HRRA trustee responded to my email and in her message which she copied to the other trustees she wrote "...agree that any fundamental changes to how HRRA is managed should be voted on by all the committee members, which it appears by Paul's comments has not occurred.."
Dave Burke was totally unwilling to admit despite several requests to do so to say who had told him about my letter to the Council and what he had been told, and it was only when HRRA's trustees were being sued that eight of them (excluding Marie Walton & Rachael Young) stated the following " Ms Eason was contacted by the council officer (Simon Hubbard) to whom the initial approach (for the free use of St. Mary's) had been made, who explained the contents of the letter Mr Broadhurst had written to him, which questioned whether it was proper (which it emphatically did not) for the council to consider our request..."
I do not know what Mr Hubbard's motivation was for disclosing the contents of my letter to Julie Eason because he has been totally unwilling as has the Council to confirm the fact and to explain why he acted as he did. The disclosure and which in the opinion of the solicitor the Helpline consulted was totally without justification, surely raises the question what other information is being disclosed by Council officers and to whom? Are disclosures only made to Labour Party activists or are there other beneficiaries of information?
I believe that there were other disclosures made to Julie Eason apart from that of my letter to Simon Hubbard.The defence document submitted by her and seven other of HRRA's trustees in respect of my damages claim contains the following phrase "... we understand that the claimant lodged a case with the Local Government Ombudsman, complaining that the conduct of the council officer (Simon Hubbard) was improper.We further understand that this case was not upheld by the ombudsman who ruled that there was no improper conduct on the part of the council officer".
The statement by HRRA's trustees, like many others in their defence was untrue and not even credible, despite a signed statement by them that they were the truth.I did not and could not have complained that Simon Hubbard had disclosed my letter because I was unaware at the time of my complaint that he had done so, my complaint was that someone connected to the council had disclosed my letter. There was no investigation by the Ombudsman, and therefore no ruling was given about improper conduct by Simon Hubbard.
The only possible source by HRRA of the knowledge that I had made a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman was by yet another disclosure from Hastings Borough Council, and I consider on the balance of probabilities that the disclosure was made to Julie Eason.
Both Roger Sweetman and I tried our very best to make Dave Burke realise that there was no truth whatsoever in his allegations about me, but emails that he wrote to us and which became increasingly acrimonious indicated that he was firmly entrenched in the belief that the allegations were true. The email exchange concluded with the following email from Dave Burke.
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:09:50 +0100
From: daveburke@
Subject: Re: your last two emails
To: roger.sweetman@ paul.broadhurst@
hi
I do not want to pursue this correspondence as I don't belive that it is achieving anything.
as I have said, i am taking it to the HRRA committtee.
i'm sure the best thing you can do it take legal advice
regards
dave
Statement - resumed
The fact that Dave Burke had announced his intention to take his untrue allegations about me and repeat them to the HRRA committee which was due to meet on 3rd September together with his mention of seeking legal advice left the Helpline with no other alternative but to consult a solicitor.
The solicitor who was then consulted read a copious amount of correspondence including a copy of my letter to Simon Hubbard at the Council, the email exchange, and then expressed the opinions that there was no justification whatsoever for the Council to have disclosed the contents of my letter to HRRA and that Dave Burke's untrue allegations to a third party constituted defamation of my character.
The solicitor wrote to Dave Burke and informed him that evidence had been seen that his allegation that I had lost HRRA the opportunity of having the free use of St. Mary's was untrue, that my letter to Simon Hubbard did not bear the interpretation of splits, which Dave Burke had also alleged, that his allegations constituted defamation of my character, and he was requested to retract all of his untrue allegations and to apologise for having made them.
Either Julie Eason had not been honest with Dave Burke as to the true reason for her request being rejected when she told him that it had, or he or the both of them had decided to make me the scapegoat for the rejection of the request.
Julie Eason's request for the free use of St. Mary's was made to Hastings Borough Council without any prior discussion of the HRRA committee, and was one of other decisions that had been made by a minority of the committee without consulting or involving other trustees.
Although Julie Eason had only became a trustee of HRRA a few months earlier, she had expressed a desire to become a joint-chair of HRRA (a post that did not even then exist, it had to be created so she could occupy it ) during the meeting held that I was unable to attend because of illness earlier that month.
The agenda for that meeting had made no mention of the creation of the posts of co-chairs, which was a legal requirement, and the first that I knew about the matter was when I received the minutes of the meeting.
I hardly knew Julie Eason, and had formed no significant personal opinions about her, but I firmly believed that her proposed appointment as a co-chair would be contrary to the interests of HRRA for the reasons that I considered it unnecessary and that such an arrangement would be unworkable in practice, so I expressed opposition to her appointment, but it was made clear to me by other trustees that the matter was a fait accomplii, and there would be no discussion whatsoever about the matter at any committee meeting.
Refusing to discuss matters of importance is no way for a charity to conduct business, and after delivering the Helpline's letter to the Town Hall I decided that as I was the only trustee who had expressed any concerns about Julie Eason's request to the Council for the free use of St. Mary's being made that my position as a trustee had become untenable.
I had previously decided that I would not stand for re-election at the forthcoming AGM, and I was frankly so disgusted with HRRA, an organisation of which I was a founder member but considered had seriously lost its way, that I resigned as a trustee that evening, and made the reasons for my resignation known in emails to the other trustees.
Nadine West, a fellow HRRA trustee responded to my email and in her message which she copied to the other trustees she wrote "...agree that any fundamental changes to how HRRA is managed should be voted on by all the committee members, which it appears by Paul's comments has not occurred.."
Dave Burke was totally unwilling to admit despite several requests to do so to say who had told him about my letter to the Council and what he had been told, and it was only when HRRA's trustees were being sued that eight of them (excluding Marie Walton & Rachael Young) stated the following " Ms Eason was contacted by the council officer (Simon Hubbard) to whom the initial approach (for the free use of St. Mary's) had been made, who explained the contents of the letter Mr Broadhurst had written to him, which questioned whether it was proper (which it emphatically did not) for the council to consider our request..."
I do not know what Mr Hubbard's motivation was for disclosing the contents of my letter to Julie Eason because he has been totally unwilling as has the Council to confirm the fact and to explain why he acted as he did. The disclosure and which in the opinion of the solicitor the Helpline consulted was totally without justification, surely raises the question what other information is being disclosed by Council officers and to whom? Are disclosures only made to Labour Party activists or are there other beneficiaries of information?
I believe that there were other disclosures made to Julie Eason apart from that of my letter to Simon Hubbard.The defence document submitted by her and seven other of HRRA's trustees in respect of my damages claim contains the following phrase "... we understand that the claimant lodged a case with the Local Government Ombudsman, complaining that the conduct of the council officer (Simon Hubbard) was improper.We further understand that this case was not upheld by the ombudsman who ruled that there was no improper conduct on the part of the council officer".
The statement by HRRA's trustees, like many others in their defence was untrue and not even credible, despite a signed statement by them that they were the truth.I did not and could not have complained that Simon Hubbard had disclosed my letter because I was unaware at the time of my complaint that he had done so, my complaint was that someone connected to the council had disclosed my letter. There was no investigation by the Ombudsman, and therefore no ruling was given about improper conduct by Simon Hubbard.
The only possible source by HRRA of the knowledge that I had made a complaint to the Local Government Ombudsman was by yet another disclosure from Hastings Borough Council, and I consider on the balance of probabilities that the disclosure was made to Julie Eason.
Both Roger Sweetman and I tried our very best to make Dave Burke realise that there was no truth whatsoever in his allegations about me, but emails that he wrote to us and which became increasingly acrimonious indicated that he was firmly entrenched in the belief that the allegations were true. The email exchange concluded with the following email from Dave Burke.
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2012 14:09:50 +0100
From: daveburke@
Subject: Re: your last two emails
To: roger.sweetman@ paul.broadhurst@
hi
I do not want to pursue this correspondence as I don't belive that it is achieving anything.
as I have said, i am taking it to the HRRA committtee.
i'm sure the best thing you can do it take legal advice
regards
dave
Statement - resumed
The fact that Dave Burke had announced his intention to take his untrue allegations about me and repeat them to the HRRA committee which was due to meet on 3rd September together with his mention of seeking legal advice left the Helpline with no other alternative but to consult a solicitor.
The solicitor who was then consulted read a copious amount of correspondence including a copy of my letter to Simon Hubbard at the Council, the email exchange, and then expressed the opinions that there was no justification whatsoever for the Council to have disclosed the contents of my letter to HRRA and that Dave Burke's untrue allegations to a third party constituted defamation of my character.
The solicitor wrote to Dave Burke and informed him that evidence had been seen that his allegation that I had lost HRRA the opportunity of having the free use of St. Mary's was untrue, that my letter to Simon Hubbard did not bear the interpretation of splits, which Dave Burke had also alleged, that his allegations constituted defamation of my character, and he was requested to retract all of his untrue allegations and to apologise for having made them.
When Dave Burke eventually responded to the solicitor's letter he failed both to retract his allegations and to apologise for having made them, and was supported in the stance that he took by HRRA's other trustees.
I was advised by the Director of Hastings Voluntary Action that as a member of HRRA I had the right to request the trustees to conduct an investigation into what I regarded as the gross misconduct of Dave Burke and Julie Eason. I made such a request on 1st September 2013 by email and at the same time informed both Dave Burke and Julie Eason as what I considered to be a matter of courtesy that I had been forced to make complaints about their conduct.
Around two hours later I received an email from Julie Eason containing a great deal of personal abuse, the contents of which are such that they cannot be reproduced here, and in which I was accused among other things of hypocrisy and lacking integrity, this being from a person fully aware that I was being blamed for something I had not done, who may well have been responsible for the false allegations made about me, and the email was sent hours before I was due to depart on a much-needed holiday the enjoyment of which was ruined by the stress and anxiety that I was suffering from.
HRRA's committee appointed three of its trustees - Mary Benton, Barbara Martin and Gary Rolfe to conduct an investigation into my complaints.
Repeated requests that I made to HRRA's investigating panel to have Julie Eason's abusive email included as part of my complaints about her elicited no response whatsoever.
I was asked by the investigating panel to provide a copy of my letter to Simon Hubbard and did so along with copies of the letters reproduced below which are incontrovertible evidence that my writing to Mr Hubbard was in no way whatsoever prejudicial to HRRA's interests and proved the allegations made by Dave Burke to have not a shred of truth in them.
Around two hours later I received an email from Julie Eason containing a great deal of personal abuse, the contents of which are such that they cannot be reproduced here, and in which I was accused among other things of hypocrisy and lacking integrity, this being from a person fully aware that I was being blamed for something I had not done, who may well have been responsible for the false allegations made about me, and the email was sent hours before I was due to depart on a much-needed holiday the enjoyment of which was ruined by the stress and anxiety that I was suffering from.
HRRA's committee appointed three of its trustees - Mary Benton, Barbara Martin and Gary Rolfe to conduct an investigation into my complaints.
Repeated requests that I made to HRRA's investigating panel to have Julie Eason's abusive email included as part of my complaints about her elicited no response whatsoever.
I was asked by the investigating panel to provide a copy of my letter to Simon Hubbard and did so along with copies of the letters reproduced below which are incontrovertible evidence that my writing to Mr Hubbard was in no way whatsoever prejudicial to HRRA's interests and proved the allegations made by Dave Burke to have not a shred of truth in them.
Statement - resumed
The investigation into my complaints conducted by HRRA's panel was protracted for seven weeks, which caused me to suffer further considerable stress and anxiety, and below is HRRA's decision that was emailed to me
DECISION OF HRRA INVESTIGATORY PANEL RELATING TO FORMAL COMPLAINT RAISED BY PAUL BROADHURST
The panel of HRRA trustees were appointed by the full committee to consider a formal complaint submitted by Paul Broadhurst and investigate all relevant issues relating to this. The Panel have met on a number of occasions to scope out their work and consider the evidence as presented or submitted to it. To guide the process the panel also sought advice on good practice relating to complaint handling from Hastings Voluntary Action as the local VCS infrastructure organisations. As an alternative to the formal complaints process an independent mediation process was also offered but declined. The panel invited and considered representations and obtained documents where these were relevant to their work.
Having completed the investigation and completed their work the panel’s decision is as follows:-
We find that the complaint is not upheld and having examined all relevant factors we find that both Julie and Dave acted reasonably and within their remit as trustee and chair of HRRA.
================================================================================================================
Statement - resumed
The assertion by Mary Benton, Barbara Martin and Gary Rolfe that Dave Burke and Julie Eason had "acted reasonably and within their remit as trustee and chair of HRRA" given that the investigating panel had received copies of all the relevant correspondence sent to and received from Hastings Borough Council and which proved that Dave Burke's allegations were untrue, and that Julie Eason had at the very least allowed the allegations to be made without countering them indicated to me that HRRA's investigation was biased in favour of the trustees about whom I had complained.
It cannot honestly be claimed that it is reasonable and within the remit of a trustee to make and allow to be made untrue and defamatory allegations which is what indisputably occurred, that I had provided evidence to the investigating panel to be so, and I therefore regard with justification I believe HRRA's so-called investigation as a sham.
At this stage I received further advice from Hastings Voluntary Action's Director, and which was that I should have the right to appeal against HRRA's decision, but repeated requests for an appeal to be heard failed to elicit any response whatsoever.
HVA's Director, in an attempt to help to resolve the escalating dispute offered to act as a mediator, and Dave Burke in his response to the solicitor's letter that he had received wrote " I have offered to attend mediation to try and resolve matters...I understand that...your client may now be willing to attend mediation. I very much welcome this. Given the state of health of your client, I do feel this would be in his best interests."
During the mediation process I requested Mary Benton to provide me with copies of three items of documentation that I considered the mediator needed to have, but the documents were not supplied, and the mediator requested Dave Burke to inform him what he had been told and by whom about my letter to Simon Hubbard, but he received no response despite Dave Burke's previously expressed willingness to co-operate with the mediation process.
Mary Benton then sent me the following email in January 2013
Paul,
This is a response to your email of 31 December 2012 and previous correspondence regarding the investigation in to the conduct of Julie Eason and Dave Burke.
We apologise for the delay in responding to some of your correspondence, but as you are aware, the committee only meets to formally discuss issues on a monthly basis and there are a number of areas for discussion at each committee meeting. In view of the comments that you have made regarding legal action against the committee the committee have felt it necessary to treat this matter in a more formal manner than would often be the case.
The issue of the investigation has been discussed by the whole committee and it has been agreed that no further information will be provided regarding this matter.
Mediation was offered before the investigation was carried out to resolve the issue, but this was rejected. It is now felt by the committee that mediation is unlikely to provide a satisfactory outcome and therefore we no longer wish to be involved in such action.
As someone who has given their time in the community sector, we are sure that you appreciate that there are limited time and resources to dedicate to the aims of any charitable organisation. The committee feel that the amount of time and resources expended on the investigation is greater than could reasonably be expected and it is unacceptable for any further time or resources to be spent on this matter. The time that has been spent on carrying out the investigation and responding to your various correspondence and requests for information could have been spent on the aims of the charity, which is to be support the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans communities of Hastings and Rother. The committee would therefore like to spend its resources going forward on its stated aims, and further time spent on this investigation would be to the detriment of this.
As far as we are concerned, this matter is now concluded and we will no longer be responding to any other correspondence on this subject.
Regards,
HRRA Committee
DECISION OF HRRA INVESTIGATORY PANEL RELATING TO FORMAL COMPLAINT RAISED BY PAUL BROADHURST
The panel of HRRA trustees were appointed by the full committee to consider a formal complaint submitted by Paul Broadhurst and investigate all relevant issues relating to this. The Panel have met on a number of occasions to scope out their work and consider the evidence as presented or submitted to it. To guide the process the panel also sought advice on good practice relating to complaint handling from Hastings Voluntary Action as the local VCS infrastructure organisations. As an alternative to the formal complaints process an independent mediation process was also offered but declined. The panel invited and considered representations and obtained documents where these were relevant to their work.
Having completed the investigation and completed their work the panel’s decision is as follows:-
We find that the complaint is not upheld and having examined all relevant factors we find that both Julie and Dave acted reasonably and within their remit as trustee and chair of HRRA.
================================================================================================================
Statement - resumed
The assertion by Mary Benton, Barbara Martin and Gary Rolfe that Dave Burke and Julie Eason had "acted reasonably and within their remit as trustee and chair of HRRA" given that the investigating panel had received copies of all the relevant correspondence sent to and received from Hastings Borough Council and which proved that Dave Burke's allegations were untrue, and that Julie Eason had at the very least allowed the allegations to be made without countering them indicated to me that HRRA's investigation was biased in favour of the trustees about whom I had complained.
It cannot honestly be claimed that it is reasonable and within the remit of a trustee to make and allow to be made untrue and defamatory allegations which is what indisputably occurred, that I had provided evidence to the investigating panel to be so, and I therefore regard with justification I believe HRRA's so-called investigation as a sham.
At this stage I received further advice from Hastings Voluntary Action's Director, and which was that I should have the right to appeal against HRRA's decision, but repeated requests for an appeal to be heard failed to elicit any response whatsoever.
HVA's Director, in an attempt to help to resolve the escalating dispute offered to act as a mediator, and Dave Burke in his response to the solicitor's letter that he had received wrote " I have offered to attend mediation to try and resolve matters...I understand that...your client may now be willing to attend mediation. I very much welcome this. Given the state of health of your client, I do feel this would be in his best interests."
During the mediation process I requested Mary Benton to provide me with copies of three items of documentation that I considered the mediator needed to have, but the documents were not supplied, and the mediator requested Dave Burke to inform him what he had been told and by whom about my letter to Simon Hubbard, but he received no response despite Dave Burke's previously expressed willingness to co-operate with the mediation process.
Mary Benton then sent me the following email in January 2013
Paul,
This is a response to your email of 31 December 2012 and previous correspondence regarding the investigation in to the conduct of Julie Eason and Dave Burke.
We apologise for the delay in responding to some of your correspondence, but as you are aware, the committee only meets to formally discuss issues on a monthly basis and there are a number of areas for discussion at each committee meeting. In view of the comments that you have made regarding legal action against the committee the committee have felt it necessary to treat this matter in a more formal manner than would often be the case.
The issue of the investigation has been discussed by the whole committee and it has been agreed that no further information will be provided regarding this matter.
Mediation was offered before the investigation was carried out to resolve the issue, but this was rejected. It is now felt by the committee that mediation is unlikely to provide a satisfactory outcome and therefore we no longer wish to be involved in such action.
As someone who has given their time in the community sector, we are sure that you appreciate that there are limited time and resources to dedicate to the aims of any charitable organisation. The committee feel that the amount of time and resources expended on the investigation is greater than could reasonably be expected and it is unacceptable for any further time or resources to be spent on this matter. The time that has been spent on carrying out the investigation and responding to your various correspondence and requests for information could have been spent on the aims of the charity, which is to be support the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans communities of Hastings and Rother. The committee would therefore like to spend its resources going forward on its stated aims, and further time spent on this investigation would be to the detriment of this.
As far as we are concerned, this matter is now concluded and we will no longer be responding to any other correspondence on this subject.
Regards,
HRRA Committee
Statement - resumed
From August 2012 onward the actions of HRRA's trustees have had a profoundly detrimental effect on both my physical and mental health and continue to do so, and the effects have been monitored and documented by health professionals. I have had and still continue to need to receive treatment . To say that I consider my life to have been blighted by what I consider to be maliciously motivated smears about me would be an understatement.
In March 2013 there clearly being no possibility whatsoever of clearing my name and establishing the truth of what had occurred, I made a claim for damages against HRRA's ten serving trustees which was rejected, and I then commenced court proceedings.
It was a legal requirement for individual letters detailing my claim to be sent to each trustee, and ten individually addressed letters were placed in one envelope and posted to HRRA's office, but subsequently two trustees, Rachael Young and Marie Walton both claimed in their defences that they had not received their letters. If this was true, the letters had to have been withheld from them by another trustee or trustees.Furthermore, both also claimed despite Mary Benton's three statements in her email to me of January 2013 that the full HRRA committee had made decisions relating to my complaint to have no knowledge whatsoever of the matter with Rachael Young stating " I was kept out of the loop and informed of this in writing more than once whilst I was a Trustee. When I asked for details I was told that the claimant has requested that details were not to be shared unnecessarily and would therefore not be shared outside the investigating panel. This I accepted."
At no time had I ever made any such request as stated by Rachael Young for details of the dispute not to be shared, and for me to have done so given that Dave Burke's allegations had already entered the public domain by late September 2012 which was before Rachael Young was elected as a trustee would have been futile.
In Marie Walton's defence she stated " "The Claimant states that he sent a letter individually addressed to me( he claims he sent the defendants individual letters). I have never received any letter from the Claimant..."
In one of her emails to me, Mary Benton had made three references to the full HRRA committee discussing matters relating to my complaints, but Ms Walton went on to state " I was however 'out of the loop' ...The allegations of the Claimant were discussed briefly (at committee meetings) and only at a high-level".
The statements made by both Ms Walton and Ms Young conflict so significantly with those made by Mary Benton that it is evident that one or more of HRRA's trustees was untruthful about the decisions that had been made, and if Ms Walton and Ms Young's comments are true that my letters were withheld from them both.
Court summonses were served in respect of my claim for damages on HRRA's trustees in June 2013, and after reading the defence jointly submitted by eight trustees (Ms Young and Ms Walton submitted separate ones) I had to inform the court that I had identified a significant number of comments in the eight defendants' joint defence that were untrue, that evidence existed proving them to be untrue, and that the defendants could not have genuine reason to believe them to be true despite each of the defendants having signed a declaration of truth relating to their statements.
My claim was subsequently discontinued against Marie Walton and Rachael Young by a district judge who decided that as they had not served as trustees for the whole period to which my claim related that they should be excluded from it.
When a hearing date was being set, another district judge considered the evidence against the eight remaining trustees and decided that as my claim involved (in part) matters of libel and slander that Hastings Court where the hearing was scheduled to take place did not have the jurisdiction to hear my claim and it was discontinued.
The untrue allegations made about me by Dave Burke and which could only have originated from him or Julie Eason or jointly from them both were clearly intended to make me the scapegoat for the rejection of Julie Eason's request to the Council, and were also made with, I believe, an intention to cause me harm, which they did. The following phrase " I never believed the sticks and stones mantra, words can, and do hurt", is a quote from a blog posting by Julie Eason on HRRA's website, and indicates that she is a person fully aware of the consequences that words can and do have on people's lives.
Last month I received a letter from a former HRRA trustee in which it was written that my actions in making a claim for damages had had a "psychological impact", and that they felt that they deserved to receive (from me) a significant sum of money in compensation, and that if a positive response was not received court proceedings against me would be commenced. Should court proceedings take place the truth as to what has occurred could not be made public, which I firmly believe in light of what has occurred needs to be, until the conclusion of the court proceedings, and that is why such a detailed account has now been posted.
All that has occurred is a direct consequence of Julie Eason and Dave Burke having been strangers to the truth and HRRA's trustees at the time of my complaints supporting them despite the overwhelming evidence presented to them of gross misconduct by these two people. I consider the conduct of the trustees of HRRA, a charity whose expressed purpose is to provide help and support to LGBT people to be beyond being totally unacceptable, for me it truly beggars belief.
My life and that of my partner have been blighted now for twenty months through stress and anxiety caused by the actions of HRRA's trustees, and a few days ago my partner was admitted to hospital having suffered a serious heart attack. Life for us both can never be the same again.
Paul Broadhurst
Chairman
Hastings & Rother Gay Helpline
3 April 2014
In March 2013 there clearly being no possibility whatsoever of clearing my name and establishing the truth of what had occurred, I made a claim for damages against HRRA's ten serving trustees which was rejected, and I then commenced court proceedings.
It was a legal requirement for individual letters detailing my claim to be sent to each trustee, and ten individually addressed letters were placed in one envelope and posted to HRRA's office, but subsequently two trustees, Rachael Young and Marie Walton both claimed in their defences that they had not received their letters. If this was true, the letters had to have been withheld from them by another trustee or trustees.Furthermore, both also claimed despite Mary Benton's three statements in her email to me of January 2013 that the full HRRA committee had made decisions relating to my complaint to have no knowledge whatsoever of the matter with Rachael Young stating " I was kept out of the loop and informed of this in writing more than once whilst I was a Trustee. When I asked for details I was told that the claimant has requested that details were not to be shared unnecessarily and would therefore not be shared outside the investigating panel. This I accepted."
At no time had I ever made any such request as stated by Rachael Young for details of the dispute not to be shared, and for me to have done so given that Dave Burke's allegations had already entered the public domain by late September 2012 which was before Rachael Young was elected as a trustee would have been futile.
In Marie Walton's defence she stated " "The Claimant states that he sent a letter individually addressed to me( he claims he sent the defendants individual letters). I have never received any letter from the Claimant..."
In one of her emails to me, Mary Benton had made three references to the full HRRA committee discussing matters relating to my complaints, but Ms Walton went on to state " I was however 'out of the loop' ...The allegations of the Claimant were discussed briefly (at committee meetings) and only at a high-level".
The statements made by both Ms Walton and Ms Young conflict so significantly with those made by Mary Benton that it is evident that one or more of HRRA's trustees was untruthful about the decisions that had been made, and if Ms Walton and Ms Young's comments are true that my letters were withheld from them both.
Court summonses were served in respect of my claim for damages on HRRA's trustees in June 2013, and after reading the defence jointly submitted by eight trustees (Ms Young and Ms Walton submitted separate ones) I had to inform the court that I had identified a significant number of comments in the eight defendants' joint defence that were untrue, that evidence existed proving them to be untrue, and that the defendants could not have genuine reason to believe them to be true despite each of the defendants having signed a declaration of truth relating to their statements.
My claim was subsequently discontinued against Marie Walton and Rachael Young by a district judge who decided that as they had not served as trustees for the whole period to which my claim related that they should be excluded from it.
When a hearing date was being set, another district judge considered the evidence against the eight remaining trustees and decided that as my claim involved (in part) matters of libel and slander that Hastings Court where the hearing was scheduled to take place did not have the jurisdiction to hear my claim and it was discontinued.
The untrue allegations made about me by Dave Burke and which could only have originated from him or Julie Eason or jointly from them both were clearly intended to make me the scapegoat for the rejection of Julie Eason's request to the Council, and were also made with, I believe, an intention to cause me harm, which they did. The following phrase " I never believed the sticks and stones mantra, words can, and do hurt", is a quote from a blog posting by Julie Eason on HRRA's website, and indicates that she is a person fully aware of the consequences that words can and do have on people's lives.
Last month I received a letter from a former HRRA trustee in which it was written that my actions in making a claim for damages had had a "psychological impact", and that they felt that they deserved to receive (from me) a significant sum of money in compensation, and that if a positive response was not received court proceedings against me would be commenced. Should court proceedings take place the truth as to what has occurred could not be made public, which I firmly believe in light of what has occurred needs to be, until the conclusion of the court proceedings, and that is why such a detailed account has now been posted.
All that has occurred is a direct consequence of Julie Eason and Dave Burke having been strangers to the truth and HRRA's trustees at the time of my complaints supporting them despite the overwhelming evidence presented to them of gross misconduct by these two people. I consider the conduct of the trustees of HRRA, a charity whose expressed purpose is to provide help and support to LGBT people to be beyond being totally unacceptable, for me it truly beggars belief.
My life and that of my partner have been blighted now for twenty months through stress and anxiety caused by the actions of HRRA's trustees, and a few days ago my partner was admitted to hospital having suffered a serious heart attack. Life for us both can never be the same again.
Paul Broadhurst
Chairman
Hastings & Rother Gay Helpline
3 April 2014