A Labour member of Hertsmere Borough Council’s cabinet has been told to apologise by a standards panel after she admitted to calling a party colleague a “f***ing disgrace”.
Nik Oakley, cabinet member for planning and transport at the borough council, admitted she had made the comment to Dan Ozarow, a Labour member of Elstree & Borehamwood Town Council.
Cllr Ozarow was deputy town mayor when the remark was made, and has since become town mayor.
He complained to Hertsmere Borough Council about Cllr Oakley’s comment, which came at the end of a fiery March meeting that had been called to allow a confidence vote on Jeremy Newmark’s leadership.
According to Cllr Ozarow’s complaint, he was “holding open one of the exit doors to enable Cllr Oakley to leave the council chamber” when she “stopped in front of him and pointing her fingers up at him in a menacing manner shouted ‘you are a f***ing disgrace’.”
Cllr Oakley recognised that her use of an expletive had been “inappropriate” but said she stood by calling Cllr Ozarow a “disgrace”.
She has now apologised to Cllr Ozarow “for the use of a profane word and any hurt or distress you feel that it caused”.
But she accused Cllr Ozarow of being “part of a baying mob who barracked the borough mayor [and] left Labour members horrified”.
She said that his conduct – including interjecting from the public gallery at the council meeting to express disagreement with a ruling made by the mayor – justified calling him a “disgrace”.
Cllr Oakley added: “The Labour party has a robust complaints procedure and I would have expected any member-on-member complaint to have been dealt with in that way.
“Making it a standards complaint to the council ensures the maximum media attention and involves unnecessary council expenditure.”
Cllr Ozarow said: “I really didn’t want to take this action.
“Sometimes people say things they don’t mean in the heat of the moment, so I gave Cllr Oakley a week to cool off and apologise to me privately.
“She failed to do so, so I was left with no choice but to report her to Hertsmere’s Standards Committee so that there can be some accountability for how she behaved to the horrified residents who were with me in the public gallery and witnessed her attack on me, as well as to those who elected her.”
He added that he felt “sad and disappointed that a former friend and colleague would so publicly treat me in this way in front of residents”.
Labour councillor Linda Smith chaired the standards panel, which was comprised of two independent members.
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The panel concluded that Cllr Oakley’s comment represented a “personal attack” on Cllr Ozarow, and that as it “occurred in the council chamber in the presence of other members of the public, it had the potential to lower the expectations and confidence of the public in councillors”.
Their report said Cllr Oakley had “failed to treat [Cllr Ozarow] with respect” and that she was obliged to do so by the council’s code of conduct despite the “perceived conduct” of Cllr Ozarow at the council meeting.
While the panel said the complaint was not currently serious enough to warrant a further investigation, it added that it would come back for “further consideration” if Cllr Oakley did not go along with its request for her to apologise to Cllr Ozarow.
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