The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Police probed councillor prior to suspension
Angus member Richard Moore remains defiant despite calls to step down
An Angus councillor suspended from the chamber for three months was the subject of a police probe over his conduct last year.
Arbroath West and Letham Liberal Democrat Richard Moore is now facing a fight for his political future following the ruling by standards watchdogs on Monday.
Four women gave evidence to the hearing which took place more than 400 days after the incident, telling how the church elder had touched them inappropriately at a council event.
A senior council source said Police Scotland had previously looked into the allegations but failed to find evidence of criminality.
The Scottish Liberal Democrats have now suspended Mr Moore pending further investigation.
Monday’s hearing at Angus Council’s Forfar HQ heard his “physical contact with women was totally inappropriate in a work context, over-familiar and sexist and that this had made the women concerned feel awkward, uncomfortable and patronised”.
Mr Moore admitted he flicked one woman’s top, as he would “a Subbuteo player”, and called them “lovely ladies”, but insisted he had not acted in a derogatory manner.
Angus Council SNP opposition group leader Lynne Devine has called on Mr Moore to consider stepping down, branding his lack of victim awareness “astounding”.
“He should have enough contrition to apologise to these women, and in the meantime, not do any council work at all,” said the Forfar councillor.
One of the women, Kirriemuir and Dean SNP councillor Julie Bell, has also demanded his resignation.
She said: “Councillor Moore’s mitigation that ‘he is from Yorkshire’ and it’s culturally acceptable there to ‘touch women because I’m friendly and tactile’ is nonsense.”
Council leader David Fairweather said: “The Standards Commission have fully investigated this case and the administration will reinforce the rigorous standards in public life that are expected of all elected members.”
The hearing panel was concerned that Mr Moore did not appear to understand the impact of his behaviour on others, and had sought to minimise how the language he had used in a professional environment would have made female colleagues and officers feel.
Mr Moore remained defiant in the face of the resignation calls yesterday.
“The Standards Commission did not consider the matter serious enough to disqualify me and it is not up to another elected member to demand that I do not do council work,” he said.
“If my colleagues want me to leave the administration, then I will do so, and I will also continue to represent my constituents.
“This has been a very difficult, and at times emotional period for my wife and I, and I think if councillors have to go through this, then it needs to happen in a much shorter time.”