Complaint against senior Plaid Cymru official is rejected
THE Ombudsman has rejected a complaint made against Plaid Cymru’s head of strategy over two Facebook groups he established in the name of former Plaid AM Neil McEvoy’s new party.
Carl Harris set up the groups shortly after South Wales Central AM Mr McEvoy, who was expelled by Plaid in 2018, announced the formation of the Welsh National Party.
Mr McEvoy claimed that Mr Harris, who is also a Carmarthenshire county councillor, was attempting to mislead the public.
Neither Plaid nor Mr Harris have explained why the groups were established.
In a letter to Mr McEvoy rejecting his complaint, an official in the Ombudsman’s office stated: “The onus is on the complainant to specify which paragraphs of the Code of Conduct they consider have been breached.
“I note in your complaint to this office, you have provided two screenshots which relate to a group that was created on February 5, 2020, and the second showing that the group’s name had changed.
“In isolation, and in addition to the paragraph above, I do not consider that this is sufficient evidence to substantiate any of your complaints, and the Ombudsman will not investigate unless there is reasonably strong evidence to suggest that the member concerned has breached the Code of Conduct.
“It is not the role of the Code of Conduct or the Ombudsman to oversee issues concerning the registration and naming of political parties.
Nevertheless, if your complaint was seeking to allege that Councillor Harris’ actions in impersonating another political party had breached the Code of Conduct, then this could be considered.
“However, I am not persuaded that the Ombudsman can consider this further because you have provided insufficient evidence to support your complaint and have not detailed which paragraphs of the Code of Conduct you consider have been breached as a result.
“Furthermore, even if the alleged breach were to be proven, the evidence provided in isolation does not demonstrate that an investigation would be in the public interest, particularly as the Facebook group is private and consists of very few members.”
Mr McEvoy said: “My complaint has served the useful purpose of evidencing a lack of consistency in the approach of the Ombudsman.
“In this case, the Ombudsman does not accept timed and dated screenshots as sufficient evidence. In all the cases against me, the Ombudsman has accepted screenshots as strong enough evidence.
“Another reason not to investigate my complaint was because I only referred to which parts of the Code of Conduct I felt had been breached. Apparently, I needed to highlight specific paragraphs.
“This is in total contrast to how the Ombudsman handled the last case against me.”
A Plaid Cymru source said: “The verdict of the Ombudsman confirms what we already knew. This was a ridiculous complaint by a former party member.”