CROYDON IN CRISIS: An online poll conducted for this website shows an overwhelming number of the borough’s residents think that the former council leadership should face police action for an offence that carries a maximum life sentence.
EXCLUSIVE by WALTER CRONXITE, political editor 

Unpunished: Tony Newman has faced no sanction for his part in the council’s financial collapse beyond suspension from the Labour Party

Tony Newman, Labour’s discredited former council leader, and his ex-cabinet member for finance, Simon Hall, should both be subject to a police investigation for possible misconduct in public office according to more than 94per cent of respondents to an Inside Croydon poll.

Newman and Hall both resigned their positions in October 2020, just days before a damning report into the mismanagement of the council was released by the Town Hall’s external auditors which accused those in charge at the council of “collective corporate blindness to both the seriousness of the financial position and the urgency with which actions needed to be taken”.

Within weeks, Croydon became just the second English local authority this century to be forced to declare itself effectively bankrupt.

Unpunished: Simon Hall, an accountant by profession, oversaw the council’s finances from 2014 to 2020

By March 2021, Newman and Hall, key members of a Labour clique which had controlled the council since 2014 and the party in Croydon for more than a decade, had resigned as councillors.

They were immediately suspended by the Labour Party, but neither has faced any further sanction for their part in the collapse of the council.

Nor has Keith Starmer and Steve Reed’s Labour taken any further action over the conduct of the two senior previous members.

Newman and Hall have repeatedly denied that there is any evidence of wrongdoing on their part (which is not quite the same as saying there was no wrongdoing…).

Overwhelming majority: Inside Croydon‘s polling showed our readers in favour of a police action

Last month, the council, finally, got around to following the 2021 recommendations of the Penn Report and raised a complaint with the Metropolitan Police of possible misconduct in public office by Newman and Hall.

And polling of Inside Croydon’s readers shows overwhelming support for such action.

Inside Croydon’s online polls are not scientific, but they offer a snapshot of opinion from this website’s readers.

94.87%

said “yes” to the proposition that “should the police investigate the conduct of ex-council leader Tony Newman?”

While

94.25%

said “yes” to the question, “Do you think the Met should investigate Simon Hall for misconduct in public office?”

Misconduct in public office is an offence under Common Law which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

But the Crown Prosecution Service is notoriously reluctant to bring prosecutions for misconduct in public office, because of the difficulties involved in successfully prosecuting a case. The two-year delay by Katherine Kerswell, the council’s chief executive, in actioning the Penn Report’s recommendations will have only made any prospects of a successful prosecution more remote.

Read more: All you ever need to know about ‘misconduct in public office’…
Read more: Penn Report wanted police probe into possible misconduct
Read more: Cover-ups and denial over Brick by Brick failure
Read more: MP calls for misconduct charges against ex-councillor Hall

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• ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SIXTH successive year in 2022 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine