Clerk calls police to oust OAPs
A GROUP of pensioners had the police called on them for alleged antisocial behaviour when they tried to attend a council meeting to find out how taxpayers’ money is being spent.
A patrol car with its siren blaring and blue lights flashing pulled up outside the small parish hall after the retired group refused to leave.
The group, whose oldest member is 80, claims the meeting should have been open to the public, but said they had been told they were “not welcome” by the council’s clerk.
They had gone to the monthly meeting of Ynysawdre Community Council near Bridgend to find out what happens to their council tax contributions.
But they denied there was any “commotion” which would have justified the attendance of the two officers at the evening meeting.
A South Wales Police spokeswoman said police were called to “a report of an anti-social behaviour nuisance incident at a closed council meeting”.
But she added: “Upon police arrival, there was no disturbance and a group of people co-operated to leave the meeting. There were no offences disclosed by any person and no breach of peace.”
Retired police officer Geoff Letman, 63, who was one of the Ynysawdre Elderly Residents’ Association (YERA) members at the meeting on February 14, said: “It transpired that the clerk had made a call to police saying there was