A LONG-running saga over the bullying of a parish clerk appears to be at an end after the former councillor involved said he has no options left to further pursue the matter.

In January 2015, the Worcester News reported on an allegation that former councillor Bob Bowley bullied clerk Sharon Baxter.

The allegations of “bullying and harassment” were brought in July 2013.

At the time both the parish council’s staffing committee and Malvern Hills District Council’s standards committee probed the allegations, with the district council finding that the code of conduct had been broken, and the allegation was upheld.

This led to sanctions being imposed including that the former councillor be excluded from council’s premises for a period.

But Mr Bowley has continued to protest his innocence and has fought a four year battle, pointing out the correct process wasn’t followed, and he wasn’t allowed to appeal. After we published the story, an investigative panel, made up of members of the parish council who had not been councillors at the time of the alleged allegations, also probed the allegations.

In their final report it was found that the original staff committee’s investigation had been “inappropriate, very protracted and denied Mr Bowley a right of appeal”. However, the panel did not support Mr Bowley’s complaint in other areas, including that the staff committee was justified in seeking independent legal advice regarding the clerk’s grievance. The panel also considered that a mitigating factor in the committee’s handling of the grievance was that the committee was “not well suited” to dealing with a grievance.

The findings of this report went back to council earlier this year, where parish councillors agreed to take action by agreeing to review procedures, documents, and seek professional guidance when dealing with similar, contentious issues in future.

Mr Bowley has told the Worcester News he remains unhappy at how he was treated, and claims that the matter has been “swept under the carpet”. Mr Bowley said: “If I had been starting out it would have ruined my career.”

Mr Bowley explained there was now no way he can pursue the matter further as Malvern Hills District Council has told him it considered the matter closed, the Local Government Ombudsmen has said it was not within their remit, and he felt a judicial review would cost thousands, with no guarantees of costs.

Parish council chairman, Councillor Trevor Geens, said: "Mr Bowley was found guilty at Malvern Hills' standards committee.

"We did a full investigation, the council voted on it, democratically. We acted on recommendations.

"There was nothing else we needed to do - we did everything in accordance with council procedures."