Ombudsman investigates own employee in Neil McEvoy probe

Martin Shipton

The Welsh Ombudsman’s office has confirmed that it is investigating whether one of its senior employees has broken its code of conduct by making disparaging comments on social media about former MS Neil McEvoy and the political party he leads.

The inquiry is also looking at other social media posts that would indicate bias.

Although he lost his South Wales Central Senedd seat in 2021, Mr McEvoy was reelected to Cardiff council the following year as a representative of the Propel party that he founded.

Cllr McEvoy says a whistleblower told him that a Twitter account named @SweetlittleSewandsew had made derogatory comments about him and the Conservative Party, and that the person responsible for the account was a senior employee of the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, based in Bridgend.

Repel

Two comments relate to Cllr McEvoy. One, in a message to former Cardiff Labour councillor Siobhan Corria shortly after the politician lost his Senedd seat, said: “I hope NM gets the message and decides to foxtrot Oscar.” [f*** off].

The other, also to Ms Corria, referred to Mr McEvoy’s political party as Repel instead of Propel, adding: “They got 600 votes in Bridgend which is 600 to [sic] many IMO.

Other tweets by @SweetlittleSewandsew that show political bias include:

* Gimme an E, gimme an N, gimme a T, gimme an I, gimme a T, gimme an L, gimme an E, gimme a D, what does it spell Boris Johnson;

* @jeremycorbyn as leader of @UKLabour is an honest return to party roots and offers a genuine alternative to @Conservatives:

* [During lockdown]. People in Wales can still go out. Instead of worrying about Wales speak to your Tory buddies about feeding kids in England;

* [Referring to former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell]. She’s a Tory Stan. Geri has always been an awful human being. She was spouting Tory nonsense back in the 90s. She and Posh were anti Europe (although I think a remainer now) and royalist.

Serious concern

The profile of @SweetlittleSewandsew states: “Impeccable music taste, loves sewing, studying again, employee, consumer, me, she/her, injustice fixer.” The account is followed by former Ombudsman Nick Bennett and has retweeted a number of announcements by the Ombudsman’s office.

Cllr McEvoy reported his concerns about the tweets and the true identity of the author to Cardiff council’s monitoring officer earlier this week. He said: “If it turns out that the person concerned is a senior employee of the Ombudsman’s office, it will be a matter for very serious concern. I was tipped off by a whistleblower about who is responsible, and clearly the first thing for any investigation is to see whether the identity matches or not. There are certainly very strong indications that it is the same person.

“The Ombudsman’s office has to be politically neutral and it would be wholly unacceptable for someone prepared to express themselves in this way to work in such a responsible role. How could any Conservative councillor, for example, expect to get a fair hearing from such a person? I know there is concern from every party except Labour about the way some complaints have been handled by the Ombudsman’s office. It’s essential that the public can have confidence that complaints will be looked at in a fair and unbiased manner, without political prejudice.”

A spokeswoman for the Ombudsman’s office said: “We were made aware of these allegations two days ago and we are dealing with this matter. As I am sure you can appreciate, we take allegations of this nature very seriously and will investigate in accordance with our Standards of Conduct. We cannot comment further at this stage as we will need to conduct our own internal investigation.”

Fraught relationship

Mr McEvoy himself has had a fraught relationship with the Ombudsman’s office over many years. He has twice been suspended by Cardiff council following findings against him by the Ombudsman.

In March 2017 a Cardiff Council tribunal found a comment that Cllr McEvoy made to a council officer after a tenant’s eviction hearing in 2015 amounted to “bullying behaviour”.[ In July 2019, Cllr McEvoy was again found to have engaged in intimidating behaviour – this time towards a care home worker. He contended that the case involved a child who had suffered “the worst case I’ve come across in 30 years”.

Elected to the Senedd as a Plaid Cymru AM (now MS) in 2016, he was expelled by Plaid and sat as an Independent before forming Propel.