Councillor Claims 'Abusive' Email Sent by Resident Group

Katherine Dunne calls for action after heated area forum meeting

Katherine Dunne was heckled at meeting and a council officer called an 'idiot'

November 30, 2022

Hounslow Council has condemned abuse from members of the public after a heated meeting where residents hurled abuse at councillors and officers. The criticism comes just one week after the Chiswick Area Forum saw residents shout for councillors to resign and call a council officer an “idiot”.

At the Hounslow Borough Council on Tuesday (29 November), there was cross-party support for the Local Government Association’s (LGA) Debate Not Hate campaign. The campaign comes after seven in 10 councillors have reported experiencing abuse and intimidation in the last year, with the LGA concerned that it will start to put people off from representing their own communities.

At the Chiswick Area Forum last week, Deputy Leader Councillor Katherine Dunne, was repeatedly interrupted by shouts from the audience while trying to answer questions about low-traffic neighbourhoods. Following the forum, Councillor Dunne claimed that all councillors were sent an ‘abusive’ email from a resident group.

Speaking on Tuesday, Cllr Dunne said, “We all received an abusive email from an organisation that calls itself ‘OneChiswick’ earlier this week, all councillors in this room received it. I have received some support but no support from those opposition benches.”

The OneChiswick group has categorically denied that the email was abusive in tone.

Reflecting on other cases of abuse she says she has experienced, including one incident allegedly involving a gun, she said, “Whether we believed that person was going to shoot us or not, that was a very disconcerting and horrible thing to go through.

“I think we all need to do better and call out that abusive behaviour when it happens. If people are invited to a meeting and asked to answer questions to explain things, then I do think the chair of that meeting needs to tell people that they can’t call an officer of this council ‘an idiot’, can’t sit on the front row at that meeting yelling at cabinet members and at officers to resign. It’s all on this spectrum that we are talking about.”

Councillor Peter Thompson, the opposition leader, welcomed the council’s support for the campaign. He said, “There seems to be this expectation that those of us in the public realm have to expect it and put up with it.”

He criticised people at the Chiswick Area Forum for using Twitter to insult other residents at the meeting. He said, “While that meeting was going on there were very hurtful and negative comments being thrown around. They are hurtful and nasty, and harmful.

“We don’t want this toxic culture to seep into what we do in Hounslow. We need to calmly disagree and call out those who seek to divide our community”

Labour Councillor John Stroud-Turp called for councillors to stand up for fellow officers who are unable to respond to abuse hurled at them by members of the public. He said, “As members, we have a duty to call out this sort of behaviour, whether it’s angry rhetoric, whether it’s finger-pointing or whether it’s name-calling.

“At least as councillors we have a right to reply, our hard-working, dedicated officers do not enjoy that privilege. When you turn a blind eye to them being publicly insulted, they sit there and say nothing. That is utterly unacceptable.

“This council does not accept that sort of behaviour in any forum, whether it’s a council meeting, committee meeting, or even a small meeting between members. We do not do it.”

Labour Councillor John Stroud-Turp addressing Hounslow Council meeting

Chair of the Area Forum, Conservative Councillor Ron Mushiso, thanked Councillor Dunne for attending the Chiswick Area forum at such late notice. He said, “If she felt singled out or abused, and I did hear a lot of words and throughout that meeting, I was calling out constant attacks coming to the panel.

“I became the chair of the Chiswick Area Forum because I wanted to forge new relationships between both sides. I hate the division that recent schemes have brought around Chiswick and around London in general. My duty as chair is to protect those who are invited to speak and also to protect officers.”

Cllr Ron Mushiso addressing a Hounslow Council meeting

A representative from OneChiswick has said the group did not send an “abusive” email to councillors. A spokesperson said, “On Sunday 27 November, OneChiswick sent an email to Hounslow Council leader Cllr. Shantanu Rajawat, copying in all other Hounslow Councillors. The email was factually correct and categorically not abusive.”

The spokesperson said that the email addressed issues visitors face visiting Chiswick due to the LTNs in place, the high number of fines collected by Hounslow Borough Council, recognised the opposition of local residents to the LTNs and raised concerns about influences on the council’s traffic policy.

OneChiswick added, “The email asked questions of the Council Leader and the Deputy Leader, Cllr. Dunne, but it was not abusive. They were questions and issues that had been raised by Cllr. Dunne’s fellow Labour councillor Richard Eason, when he called for her resignation when these disastrous LTN schemes were first being put in.

“OneChiswick represents thousands of people in Chiswick who feel the same way. When we did a petition during the early stages of the campaign over 10,000 people signed it to say they wanted the changes reversed. Many many more feel the same way.”

Megan Stanley - Local Democracy Reporter