‘I didn’t turn a blind eye’ says former leader
FORMER Rochdale MP and council leader Paul Rowen said he refuted the report’s findings that he ‘turned a blind eye’ to Knowl View school, calling the claim ‘ridiculous’.
But speaking from his home after the report’s publication, he said he ‘had to accept’ its findings.
Mr Rowen admitted that when he became council leader in May 1992, following Richard Farnell into the role after the council changed hands from Labour to Liberal Democrat, he ‘did not prioritise’ during the first 10 days of his leadership a report he was asked to consider on Knowl View.
But he said he ‘rejects totally’ the report’s claims that he was ‘unin- terested, turned a blind eye or was insufficiently inquisitive’ about what was going on at the school.
He said the accusations were ‘totally unfounded and without any evidential basis’.
Mr Rowen said the outgoing Labour administration ran the council in a way which was ‘designed to limit the flow of information to other councillors, and the public, about events at the school’.
“It is difficult for people to understand what we were living in then,” he said. “As opposition councillors we were ignored.”
Mr Rowen said councillors relied on council officers to bring matters of concern to their attention.
He said he would have acted if anyone had suggested action was required in relation to the school, and did act after he met school staff, students and their parents to discuss their concerns.
He revealed he then asked the council’s chief executive to raise matters with the then Chief Superintendent of police in Rochdale, so officers could investigate the allegations further – one of two occasions in which he raised the matter with police.
Mr Rowen, 62, said: “I find it a bit difficult to accept the accusation that I turned a blind eye.
“I acted on everything that I was asked to do. If I had ignored advice then I think that would have been even worse.”