All 38 complaints against Tory councillor Linda Symes for sharing 'racist' posts dismissed by Portsmouth City Council

Portsmouth City Council considered 38 written complaints from the public about Councillor Linda Symes, who was separately suspended by the Conservative Party.

Now a panel made up of council monitoring officer Peter Baulf, three other councillors and an independent person, has ruled the council should take no action - dismissing all complaints.

In a document seen by The News, Mr Baulf said the council’s code of conduct could not be brought to bear as this can only be used when a councillor is acting in an official capacity, or in a way giving the impression they are doing so.

His document said she had apologised nonetheless.

But speaking to The News today, Cllr Symes said she ‘can’t remember apologising’ and pointed to 35 people from ‘diverse backgrounds’ sending in statements supporting her to the panel.

She added: ‘I didn’t apologise because I’m not racist – to apologise I would have had to have been racist.’

As reported, two of her shares on Facebook referenced the murder of soldier Lee Rigby as well as seven-year-old Emily Jones, asking why there were no riots over their deaths.

Another stated: 'Because of his ethnicity Khan (Sadiq) will remain Mayor’.

They were posted after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died while being arrested in America. His death sparked a global wave of uproar and strengthening of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Cllr Symes today said: ‘I can’t remember apologising because I don’t think what I did was in any way racist. I understand the timing wasn’t good.’

She added: ‘As far as I was concerned I was forwarding an opinion from my social media on my own private social media page - I do have a public one but this is my private social media page. I was showing it for discussion really.

Cllr Symes said: ‘Unfortunately the timing wasn’t good, if I’m perfectly honest.

‘There was no racist intent at all.’

She said that ‘everybody’s lives matter’ and added: ‘Anyone whose life was taken senselessly.’

She said: ‘The terrible death of George Floyd was an appalling thing to happen and it deserved the attention it got.’

SEE MORE: Portsmouth politician under fire for 'undeniably racist' social media posts

Cllr Symes, who represents Eastney & Craneswater, is still suspended by the Conservative Party under investigation.

More than 4,000 people signed a petition calling for the council to take action against her.

Labour previously branded the posts ‘undeniably racist’ and ‘hate speech’.

In the document revealed after the panel’s August 20 meeting, Mr Baulf said: ‘It was concluded that the comments made through the social media platform were restatements of third party individuals with no additional comment as to the basis of your support or otherwise of a direct nature.

‘This said, I was of the view that in terms of the evidence, it could be inferred that you were aligned to the comments so made, which, whilst inappropriate, were not such as to engage me in consideration of the code of conduct.’

He added: ‘Whilst your conduct was clearly ill-advised and for which you have already apologised and confirmed that you will undergo appropriate equal opportunities training, I was left to no doubt as to the inapplicability of the code of

conduct in this particular case and as such, can confirm that it was not engaged.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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