MICHAEL Brown, Chief Executive of Wyre Council, in asking for panel members to recommend levels of allowances for Wyre councillors, has declared that, "they must be entirely independent of... personal relationships with council members."

This is the same person who has just completed his task as "independent" investigator into the Ivan Taylor fiasco. Those fine ideals which he demands from others appear not to be shared by himself. He accepted his investigative role for Blackpool in spite of his admitted failure to meet the need of being "independent of personal relationship" with the accused.

In addition, most crucially, he agreed at the hearing of the case, that his report was incomplete as he had chosen not to examine some key documentary evidence which was (and still is) held by the Town Hall Housing Benefits Department and readily available to him.

Readers are not generally aware that the hearing was in two parts. The first part, during which the above came to light, was open to the public. The second, however, which was in fact dedicated to the decision-making process, was in secret. Those present were the councillors and the Town Hall legal people.

The councillors, as laymen who were involved in a decision which turned on law, had little option but to allow themselves to be guided by the lawyers present. The outcome was that it was agreed that the accused, concerning the matter of non-registration of a property interest, had committed a criminal offence, to which in fact, he had previously confessed in the first half of the hearing. The other matter, that is the allegations of involvement in housing benefit fraud, could only be heard on the basis of the incomplete evidence put to the hearing

It would obviously have been contrary to natural justice to find against the accused on the basis of incomplete evidence, irrespective of the reason for that absence. Those present could do no other than vote as they did. The proper place for the determination of points of law of course is a court of law. The Opposition Party which to its credit, had done so much to bring out the truth in this matter, must continue its pressure for that to be the next step in the resolution of this very serious issue.

Peter Roscoe, Bond St, Blackpool.