Revealed:The complaints about Neil McEvoy AM
Plaid Cymru is facing fierce criticism from the complainants and Mr McEvoy over its handling of the complaints
DETAILS of the complaints made to Plaid Cymru about Neil McEvoy AM can be made public for the first time.
Five of the 11 people understood to have made complaints spoke to the Western Mail to express their frustration at the length of time the party was taking to deal with the issues they raise.
The people we have spoken to cannot understand why the party has taken so long to address complaints which they mostly made in early 2017, and say it has left them in a vulnerable position.
They fear it will put people off making complaints in future, and say the party failed to protect their identities when it released their complaints to Mr McEvoy.
Mr McEvoy held a press conference in Cardiff Bay yesterday morning to respond to some of the allegations after the Western Mail approached him for a response.
He alleged that some of the complaints were part of a co-ordinated campaign to undermine him because of his criticism of Cardiffbased political consultancy and lobbying firm Deryn.
He also attacked Plaid Cymru’s handling of the complaints and the
Assembly group’s decision to expel him as a member earlier this week.
He said: “There has been no due process, no duty of care towards me and natural justice has not prevailed.”
Plaid Cymru would not answer our questions about its handling of the complaints, but issued a statement yesterday in response to Mr McEvoy’s criticisms, denying that the complaints were “co-ordinated in any way”.
It also apologised to the people who complained for releasing so many of their details to Mr McEvoy in error.
These are the five complaints people have spoken to the Western Mail about: 1. Mr McEvoy’s employee A member of staff – who is now involved in an employment dispute with Mr McEvoy – wrote a sevenpage complaint letter, dated October 2017.
The complaint details the deterioration in his relationship with the AM and the effect it had on his health.
In his press conference, Mr McEvoy said he could not respond directly as it was an employment matter being dealt with by the Assembly Commission.
2. Llamau charity head Frances Beecher
The head of homelessness charity Llamau complained about Neil McEvoy to Plaid Cymru in March 2017.
Frances Beecher claimed he sent emails in early 2016 that her staff found “threatening and intimidating” and which she described as “badgering and belligerent”.
She said he rang the charity to accuse it of “victimising men”, leaving the manager he spoke to feeling “uneasy and attacked” in May 2016.
She added that he was “bullish, difficult and aggressive” at the charity’s public election hustings in May 2016.
In relation to Ms Beecher’s complaint, Mr McEvoy said he was complaining about a report written about a vulnerable man and was “robustly standing up for my constituent. That’s what I do”.
He also accused the charity of being motivated by a link to the Deryn consultancy firm as it had employed one of Deryn’s advisers as a consultant.
Responding to Mr McEvoy yesterday, Ms Beecher said he was wrong to assume she knew the consultant when she made the complaint.
She said it was the first time Llamau had ever complained and she felt a duty to “highlight any behaviour by an elected politician which it deems to be intimidatory and unacceptable, and then to allow the appropriate authorities to investigate”.
3. The Plaid member
A complaint from a Plaid member alleges Mr McEvoy made “misleading” public comments about the NSPCC’s opposition to shared parenting in a Facebook post on September 5, 2017.
In the post, he accuses the NSPCC of opposing shared parenting, writing “that’s the reason I won’t give that charity a single penny; they are happy to see natural dads excluded”.
On its website, the NSPCC says that “children do best when they have contact with both parents”.
Following his suspension in 2011 for accusing Welsh Women’s Aid of “publicly funded child abuse”, he was told he had failed to provide evidence of “unsubstantiated allegations” and that it was “not appropriate to raise specific allegations in a public discussion”.
Mr McEvoy committed to avoid inflammatory language in such discussions after being readmitted to the party.
Mr McEvoy did not respond to this in his press conference. However, he maintains that publicly funded charities operating in Wales ought to be open to scrutiny and to criticism if necessary. 4. Deryn director Nerys Evans Nerys Evans, a former Plaid Cymru AM who is now a director of the Cardiff-based lobbying firm, alleged in a complaint to Plaid in March 2017 that Mr McEvoy made her feel “bullied, threatened and intimidated” by “a campaign of smears” against “herself and her company”.
Mr McEvoy said that Ms Evans’ complaint was founded on legitimate newspaper stories and tweets that did not refer to her and that there was “no actual interaction between Nerys Evans and me.”
He went on to accuse her company, Deryn, of trying to stop him doing his job as an AM by scrutinising a monitoring contract it won from Ofcom, which was not put out to competitive tender despite the fact two of its senior figures sit on an advisory committee to Ofcom.
Mr McEvoy’s criticisms of the process were all reported by the Western Mail and led to Ofcom admitting it had breached procurement rules but said the roles of the two Deryn directors on its advisory committee had no bearing on its decision to award the contract.
Huw Roberts, chairman of Deryn, issued a response on behalf of the company. He said: “We are really proud of the work we do and the team we have built. We have a strong track record on campaigning to tackle the harassment and abuse of women, and in particular of women in public life.
“Today shows that we have quite a long way to go here in Wales, and it may now be more difficult for women to be confident in raising such matters.” 5. Deryn director Cathy Owens Cathy Owens alleged in March 2017 that Mr McEvoy called her at work in July 2016 and asked if she “supported child abusers”.
The former Welsh Labour special adviser who now works for Deryn claims Mr McEvoy was “trying to bully me into submission”.
In his response, Mr McEvoy claimed Ms Owens was “a hardnosed commercial lobbyist”.
“Would she be intimidated by a phone call?” he asked.
Most of the complaints, apart from the later complaint from an employee, were made in the wake of Mr McEvoy’s suspension as a councillor by an independent panel in March last year.
After the suspension, Plaid’s chairman announced an investigation into Mr McEvoy which the complainants say led them to believe their allegations would be properly addressed.
The five people claim Plaid’s failure to investigate quickly will prevent people reporting issues in the future.
They want to know if their complaints are being looked at as a group action or individually and feel all should be looked at as a group to demonstrate a pattern of behaviour.
One said she believed the saga showed a “weakness in the system” of Welsh politics.
She said that it was “very, very, difficult” to deal with issues in the Assembly and especially with a person being both an AM and a councillor.
Another said: “I do not understand why it’s taken so long.
“I don’t understand why they haven’t made a decision by now because they are effectively making and putting us in a more vulnerable position”.
A third said they had become “disillusioned” with the process.
“I can’t see the will to take it forward. I don’t see anything happening in the Assembly.
“I have become completely disillusioned by the whole process.”
In October, at least one complainant was told by the chief executive of Plaid Cymru, Gareth Clubb, that “circumstances beyond my control” had delayed the process of dealing with them.
He cited the snap General Election, summer recess and that issue of amendments which needed to be made to the party’s standing orders as the reasons for the delay.
In November, meetings of Plaid Cymru disciplinary panels were arranged to look at the complaints and decide whether there was a case to answer and, if so, whether an investigation was needed.
Complainants were told that if it was found there was no case to answer, they would be given the rea- sons why.
Several of their complaints, relating to Mr McEvoy’s time as an AM, were passed to the National Assembly’s Standards Commissioner in December – nine months after they were made.
A spokesman for the Standards Commissioner said whether they will be examined collectively will be at his discretion “depending on the circumstances” but would answer further questions.
Mr McEvoy was given copies of some of the complaints after making a “subject access request” under information laws which give certain rights to information held about himself.
Until Mr McEvoy’s press conference, the complainants – who also have rights not to be identified under the same law – claim they were not certain what information had been released or what steps had been taken to protect their identity.
In its statement yesterday, Plaid apologised for releasing so many details.
It said: “Details of some of the complaints should not have been handed to Mr McEvoy and were done so in error. We wish to apologise unreservedly to the complainants for that.”
In response to our requests for a comment for this article, Plaid Cymru refused to provide a statement. A request for an interview with us with the party leader was also turned down.
However, party chairman Alun Ffred Jones separately said that the party has apologised to the complainants for the delay.
Speaking on Wednesday, he said: “I have apologised on behalf of the party to those who made the complaints and those complained about for deficiencies in our procedures.
“The panel didn’t actually meet until just before Christmas. There was a long delay in holding the panel meeting for reasons that were actually very good reasons.
“Complaints that refer to Neil’s position as an AM have been for- warded to the Assembly’s Standards Commissioner, while other complaints will be dealt with by the party.”
Leanne Wood did speak to the BBC’s Sunday Politics Wales programme. She said: “There’s been frustrations with the process which I have not been able to have any hand in or anything to do with. That’s been organised by a separate part of the party.
“We have a membership and disciplinary process and I am not at liberty to comment on that.
“There were problems with the system. I accept that. We took action to rectify those problems in our autumn conference, that’s what delayed the process.”
She said she had not been part of the decision to refer the complaints to the Standards Commissioner.
She said it was “very difficult” to comment on allegations when “you haven’t seen the detail of those complaints”.
Mr McEvoy was initially elected to Cardiff council in 1999 representing Labour, but joined Plaid Cymru in 2003 and was elected councillor in 2008, becoming deputy leader for four years, and still represents the Fairwater ward.
He was first suspended from the party in 2011 after accusing Welsh Women’s Aid of “publicly funded child abuse”. He was readmitted after apologising and agreeing to abide by rules about the language he used.
Mr McEvoy was twice suspended by the party’s Assembly group in 2017, the first time after being found by an independent disciplinary panel to have bullied a council official – which also led to his suspension as a councillor.
The second suspension was after the other Plaid AMs accused him of being a “distraction and disruption” who undermined the party’s unity and integrity.
While suspended, he was permanently expelled earlier this week after his fellow Plaid AMs alleged he had “smeared the reputation of colleagues” through a public statement he issued.
An online petition has been started by an anonymous group called “Concerned Welsh women”. It calls on Plaid Cymru not to reinstate him. The petition has more than 20,000 electronic signatures.
The petition ends: “We call upon Plaid Cymru to review their support for Mr McEvoy and take the necessary measures to ensure that he has no platform to attack the already fragile position of women in Wales.”
During the press conference, Mr McEvoy criticised Plaid Cymru, saying: “I have been accused of many things by the Plaid group: undermining people and demoralising them.
“Well for nine months I was told there were complaints against me and an inquiry into my behaviour.
“I’ve also been accused of being disruptive and disrespectful. There is nothing more disrespectful than to decide to suspend me after a few minutes’ discussion in the Any Other Business section of a Plaid group meeting.
“There is nothing more disrespectful to Plaid Cymru members than expelling an AM after so many people had campaigned for so long for me to get in this Assembly, without even telling them why they had done it.
“There is nothing more disrespectful than being sacked from your group through a forwarded email that simply said “for information”.
“There has been no due process, no duty of care towards me and natural justice has not prevailed.”
Responding to his press conference yesterday morning, a spokesman for Plaid Cymru said: “Neil McEvoy has failed to provide evidence that the complaints against him are co-ordinated in any way.
“He has also neglected to mention the fact that not all complaints against him have been referred to the Standards Commissioner. A number of separate complaints against Neil McEvoy remain with the party and are not related in any way to Deryn.
“Details of some of the complaints should not have been handed to Mr McEvoy and were done so in error. We wish to apologise unreservedly to the complainants for that.”
A spokesman for the Plaid Cymru Assembly Group added: “It is flatly untrue that Neil McEvoy was expelled from the Plaid Cymru Assembly Group for any reasons relating to lobbying companies.
“As was stated at the time, Neil McEvoy was suspended in March 2017 for breaching the group’s code of conduct and numerous standing orders.
“Conflating party investigations into complaints against him with his expulsion from the Assembly Group is a deliberate distortion of the facts by Mr McEvoy.”