Leader – Right to know
On 14 May 2022, Hackney Council’s then chief executive Mark Carroll phoned Mayor Philip Glanville to discuss a highly sensitive matter. Carroll informed the borough leader that Tom Dewey, who was a newly-elected councillor and also a person with whom Glanville was sharing a house, had been arrested the month before.
We know that Carroll had been contacted regarding Dewey’s arrest, a day before making the call to Glanville, by Hackney’s director of children’s social care.
All that Glanville has said about the call from Carroll is that he was “told of the arrest, but not the full extent of the charges”. It seems that only two people know the exact content of that phone conversation. The council says it has no record of what was said.
Many justifiable questions to those involved about who knew what, and when, and how, have been met with silence, partial responses, or obfuscation. A lack of openness and transparency bedevils many accounts of the events of April and May last year.
What has become apparent is the profound tension between reputation management and parrhesia – to speak about everything and to do so freely.
It is therefore unsurprising that there are calls for an independent inquiry.
Glanville moved out the next day after the party but well before there was any possible calls from outsiders for action. He got the call one day, then moved out the next. Clearly having the party was a mistake.
I would have spoken with Dewey, asked him what it was all about and decided on a course of action based on the replies. Glanville moved out so he clearly knew something was up – didn’t he?
But Dewey had only been arrested , not charged let alone prosecuted and found guilty at that stage, so in the eyes of the law was still regarded as innocent. Are Campaigners saying all public officials should have no contact with anybody who has been arrested?
This is a storm in a teacup and not worthy of expending public money, that’s our money remember, on something that is of little real importance.
Graham. You are clearly shilling for Glanville. It was impossible for him not to have known about the arrest as the police would have been aware of who he was and he would have been informed. Also, my information is that he was illegally renting the house which was owned by a charitable trust and let to someone else. Another Labour councillor described the house as a revolving door of rent boys some under age. There is a major scandal here.