The long-awaited independent inquiry into the wrongful sacking of former tourism chief David Christley is finally under way.

The council has appointed an arbitrator, Terence Sullivan from ACAS, to supervise the investigation who will look at all aspects of the council's case which failed spectacularly when scrutinised by experts at an industrial tribunal and ended up costing the tax payer thousands of pounds with the threat of yet more to come.

The inquiry has a specific remit and will consider a number of areas including:

reporting the reasons the council was found to be 'procedurally and substantively unfair'

whether members and officers correctly followed procedures

looking for evidence of claims that staff were 'intimidated'

to report on any revised procedures recommended following the tribunal findings The Citizen understands that should the inquiry reveal any misconduct against either officers or members. then proceedings can be suspended and the possibility of invoking disciplinary proceedings considered.

Council chiefs have been under fire since the hearing when the tribunal chairman issued a stinging six-page criticism of the council's whole case which was flawed and offered conflicting evidence.

David Christley, who was dismissed for alleged bullying, has on a number of occasions asked for permission to address councillors to present his side of the case and has been refused every step of the way by officers and former officers at the town hall.

The former tourism officer, who currently has a compensation claim against the authority, declined to discuss the inquiry specifically but commented: "There's an awful lot of bad things that have been done to me and I welcome anything which attempts to get to the bottom of it and establish the truth."

One previous 'inquiry', conducted by former Labour council leader Stanley Henig and Cllr Ian Barker, was this week described by several councillors as "a poor cosmetic exercise designed to give the impression they had done something about the cock-up."

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