Leeds Councillors in Court for Council Tax Arrears

By James Simons

Four Leeds councillors have been taken to court for none payment of Council tax.  The four councillors were exposed after a free Lance journalist in the Leeds area served the council with a freedom of information request (FOI) to obtain information about councillors in arrears in the council.

Leeds City Council released the names of two of those councillors but withheld the names of a further two on the grounds that they are already subject to a court order to settle their arrears.

Those two luckily escape being exposed, whilst the other two were named as Labour Headington Ward Councillor, Jonathan Pryer, and party colleague, Gullane Hussein.

Both men have been made subject to liability orders to settle outstanding bills over the last two years. Liability Orders are conventionally imposed after all other avenues have been exhausted to recover the money owed.

COUNCIL RECORDS

Council records seen by the eye of media.com showed that Coun Hussein received 22, 893.88 in allowances in the
most recent published figures for 2014/2015, while Coun Pryor received 12,801.88 for the same year.

The identity of a business partner of one of the councillors  somewhat implicated in the none payment of Council tax was withheld by the Council because he falls under a private person.

ANONYMITY

The free Lance journalist, who insisted on anonymity, told the eye of media.com, ” the FOI request was on councillors, so they were able to protect the identity of the offending business partner. Councillors are public sector workers, FOI’s in this type of cases cannot be extended to private parties”, he said.

SHAMEFUL

The shameful revelation is damaging for the reputation of the Councillors in question, who should no better than to evade Council Tax. Both Gullam and Pryor released statements apologising for the disgraceful offence, stating they had put arrangements in place to prevent such an occurence again.

However, the apology is too late since both had opportunities to rectify the situation before it got this far. “An apology subsequent to being caught. Counts for little, the freelancer told the eye of media.com.

Anybody can be sorry after being caught and exposed. These men are public sector employees who should be setting an example to the public, not committing offences like this, especially whilst in office”, the freelancer stated.

The Story made front page in today’s Yorkshire Evening Post newspaper- a leading daily local paper for the Yorkshire area. Well done on this journalist for the initiative, excellent work!