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James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 10:06 pm
by LHA
How interesting. The website of Pickering Town Council has been updated. There are no longer any references to James Andrew Husband, the Town Clerk.

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 1:02 am
by richardb
Rather amusing to read the Agenda for the meeting of the Staffing Committee held on 29th June which includes the following item:

"To receive information from the acting town clerk about whether there have been any problems in the management of the council office during the town clerks absence.."

He didn't have the decency to resign even when he was rumbled.

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 5:59 pm
by richardb
Pickering Town Council has now caught up:

http://www.gazetteherald.co.uk/news/163 ... t-assault/

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 8:59 pm
by LHA
What an appalling/stupid response. This is a publicly accountable organisation, what advice do they need? He has been convicted of rape and will be in prison for years, possibly until he dies. It reads like they are worried about an employment tribunal!

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2018 9:01 pm
by richardb
He won't be at work for a while yet.

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 12:34 am
by scrub
I'm guessing it means they're trying to find a legal way of putting as much distance between themselves and him, something which most likely includes making sure he gets as little money from them for his tenure as legally possible and scrubbing as much of it from legal/written memory as they can.

No one wants to be the council that got sued by a convicted rapist because they didn't follow the correct legal path to disowning them and anything they did for them before the conviction.

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:56 am
by LHA
Hmm.Possibly on stuff like pension rights you might have a point - but the statement is absurd - they ca and should a) express horror at the convictions and extend their sympathy to the victims b) make clear that he is no longer the Town Clerk, as he is a convicted rapist at the start of a long prison sentence c) clarify when they became aware of these issues. Hardly a great advert for their town

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:49 am
by richardb
They should just sack him.

First off, no self respecting council should be seen to be supporting a convicted paedophile. Secondly, the fact that it will be some years before he can actually go to work provably means his contract of employment has been frustrated. Thirdly he has contributed to his own dismissal. Fourthly he is beyond state retirement age and from memory he cannot claim unfair dismissal.

We had a client once who murdered his wife. His employer sacked him and he made a claim for unfair dismissal. He got nowhere.

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:22 am
by scrub
It could also be laziness from the council because they haven't read the full report yet and just released that as a generic statement. I live in York and the local press coverage so far was 1 article on Thursday, so I wouldn't be surprised if it takes the weekend for the council to catch on.
Swift and competent are not words used to describe councils round here.

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:59 am
by marty
scrub wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:22 am
Swift and competent are not words used to describe councils round here.
If you ever come across a swift and/or competent council please let me know. Will happily consider moving to such a mythical place! 😉

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sat Jul 07, 2018 2:40 pm
by Chrissie Boy
Ten out of ten for sheer front though, Andrew Husband. The guy was still blogging re. Pickering and being a thoroughly good sort to all appearances well into this year on behalf of the town. Heck, the guy even delivered a lecture on the history of Pickering War Memorial Hall back in January; pretty damn nonchalent for someone with such a serious charge hanging over his head. https://www.kirkbymoorside.info/tag/talks/page/2/

Now I'm wondering whether the Rotarians will demand their Paul Harris Fellowship back (whatever that is). https://www.pickering-rotary.org.uk/hom ... -phf-award

Basically it's Burr all over again, isn't it? Such a nice guy, did so much for the community and for local charities..... And I suppose he did, too, which makes it all even more uncomfortable. That's to say, who was the real Peter Burr/Andrew Husband? The people of Dartmouth appear now to consider that Burr was a complete monster who was only masquerading as a gentleman, so probably the people of Pickering will decide the same about Husband. What the two men actually were, of course, was human beings with feet of clay. Unfortunately for them (and for everyone else), their clay feet were just too unacceptably large. Most of us are lucky enough only to have small ones.

Which is not, of course, apologism on my part, but just a thought.

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:11 am
by sejintenej
LHA wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:56 am Hmm.Possibly on stuff like pension rights you might have a point - but the statement is absurd - they ca and should a) express horror at the convictions and extend their sympathy to the victims b) make clear that he is no longer the Town Clerk, as he is a convicted rapist at the start of a long prison sentence c) clarify when they became aware of these issues. Hardly a great advert for their town
Whilst I understand and agree with your view this is what the newspaper wants to print; what we do not have is the entire statement from the council

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:16 am
by sejintenej
scrub wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 12:34 am I'm guessing it means they're trying to find a legal way of putting as much distance between themselves and him, something which most likely includes making sure he gets as little money from them for his tenure as legally possible and scrubbing as much of it from legal/written memory as they can.

No one wants to be the council that got sued by a convicted rapist because they didn't follow the correct legal path to disowning them and anything they did for them before the conviction.
The company I worked for got taken to court when they sacked the head of the Frankfurt office because of his actions against a Jew on the staff and his verbals on the matter. I think the man was allowed to appeal three times (ie he lost four times in court. In this case the Council must be publicly SEEN to be dotting the "i"s ans crossing the "T"s

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:56 am
by richardb
sejintenej wrote: Sun Jul 08, 2018 8:11 am
LHA wrote: Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:56 am Hmm.Possibly on stuff like pension rights you might have a point - but the statement is absurd - they ca and should a) express horror at the convictions and extend their sympathy to the victims b) make clear that he is no longer the Town Clerk, as he is a convicted rapist at the start of a long prison sentence c) clarify when they became aware of these issues. Hardly a great advert for their town
Whilst I understand and agree with your view this is what the newspaper wants to print; what we do not have is the entire statement from the council
The statement is on the council website:

http://www.pickering.gov.uk/contact-us/

Re: James Andrew Husband, Pickering Town Council

Posted: Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:13 am
by Jim Rayner
Looks like just a holding statement while they sort out the formalities.

They have an extra-ordinary meeting of the staffing committee set up for next Friday at 6pm followed straight after by an extra-ordinary meeting of the full council. Both to discuss a 'staffing matter' http://www.pickering.gov.uk/meetings-and-minutes/

The verdicts were announced on Thursday and the notices for these meetings went out the following day.

They're going to sack him on Friday, aren't they?