THE chair of a village council has been forced to apologise after he was found to be disrespectful towards people with disabilities, referring to a group of residents as “inmates of the asylum”.

Councillor Julian Jones, chair of Dummer Parish Council, was investigated by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council after a formal complaint was made against him last year in relation to an email exchange.

Anne Greaves, deputy monitoring officer for the borough council, found that Cllr Jones had shown a “worrying disrespect towards people with disabilities” by assuming that those with mental health issues are “inferior” and making comments to insult them.

A complaint was made to the borough council on July 8 last year, by Mr and Mrs Niven.

It referred to an email exchange between Cllr Jones and another person – ‘Mr H’ – which took place in June.

Cllr Jones inadvertently forwarded the email chain to others, which was then forwarded to further residents including the complainants.

Those who received the email had been complaining of odour coming from an Anaerobic Digestion (AD) Plant.

In the correspondence, Mr H emailed Cllr Jones referring to “the asylum” and an “odour incident”, adding: “Looks like there will be another need for tranquillizers between 8am and noon tomorrow (Monday) as the wind is set fair to give the patients a blast of the eau de pong. For the rest of the week it looks as if the God of Odours has smiled on our friends in the asylum as the wind is mainly from northerly directions.”

Cllr Jones responded saying: “Let’s hope the God of Odours continues to smile on the asylum.”

While Ms Greaves found the comment was “disrespectful” she concluded that it was not discriminatory, explaining: “Cllr Jones used the term “asylum” as a term of general abuse, not because he genuinely thought that the residents had mental health issues. This does not therefore amount to direct discrimination.”

She added: “Whilst not amounting in law to either direct or indirect discrimination, the entire tone of the conversation shows a worrying disrespect towards people with disabilities as there is an assumption that certain groups of people with disabilities, in this case, people with mental health issues are inferior, and therefore making comments that associate individuals with this group is to insult or slur them, specifically for example the comment about “inmates of the asylum”.”

The councillor apologiesd to residents on June 20 after seeking advice, before resigning as the chair of the AD Plant Liaison Panel.

The borough council concluded its investigation in December, deciding that Cllr Jones’ email exchange was in relation to parish business, involving nuisance complaints from the AD Plant.

“He was therefore acting in his role as a councillor, and even though the email exchange was intended to be private, his conduct in respect of this matter is governed by the Code of Conduct,” the report said.

It added: “Cllr Jones has failed to treat others with respect. His conduct did not however bring his office or the parish council into disrepute and it did not cause the parish council to breach the Equalities Act 2020.”

The report concluded: “Undoubtedly the insensitive email exchange has damaged Cllr Jones’s own reputation amongst those members of the public who inadvertently saw the private email exchange but it has not brought the parish council into disrepute in that in has not impeded the ability of the council to carry out its functions.”

Ms Greaves said in her report that some residents were “upset and hurt” by the comments, adding: “Cllr Jones had no good reason to treat residents who were raising legitimate odour complaints in such a way. He was therefore disrespectful to others in breach of this obligation.”

Cllr Jones was asked to ensure he apologised to all residents who received the email, and to undertake equalities training.

In a statement to the Gazette, he said: “I made a mistake for which I have apologised to all concerned and undertaken equality, diversity and inclusion training as required by the Decision Repot.

“I resigned as chairman of the Anaerobic Digester Liaison Committee in June. I now wish to continue to concentrate on serving my community and working with local disability groups to improve accessibility of new developments in Basingstoke.”