INSIDE SUTTON: The long adios of Sheldon Vestey, the Valencia-based councillor for… checks notes … Hackbridge, has seen him once again hauled before a council disciplinary panel – albeit via video link – after an investigation that has cost the council £14,000. CARL SHILTON reports
Bib and tucker: Labour’s Sheldon Vestey waged a two-year harassment campaign
Señor Sheldon Vestey, the Labour councillor for Hackbridge who has lived in southern Spain for more than a year, has finally complied with instructions from a Sutton Council panel and issued an admission of misconduct and an apology, albeit grudgingly.
The councillor on the Costas waged a two-year harassment campaign against another member of Sutton Council, which included allegations of paedophilia, illegal pornography, racism, sexual predation and incitement to murder. None of Vestey’s vile allegations were ever substantiated.
As a consequence, Vestey was subject of formal complaints which led to a hearing before the council’s code of conduct panel in July last year. The panel upheld three complaints against the leader of the two-member Labour group in Sutton, and ordered Vestey to issue an apology to Conservative councillor Steve Alvarez, the target of his campaign, as well as to Sutton’s other councillors who Vestey had emailed. Vestey was also to undergo a training course.
Vestey promptly took leave of absence from his council duties for six months.
No apology was forthcoming, nor remediative training undertaken.
Admission of misconduct: Vestey’s somewhat grudging emailed apology
At two subsequent meetings of the council’s audit and governance committee, last October and then last month, councillors demanded that the chair, Liberal Democrat councillor Colin Stears, should write to Vestey to get him to respect the outcome of the independent investigations that found him guilty.
Vestey’s refusal to apologise and follow the panel’s instructions prompted a further complaint over his misconduct.
Last month, after questioning from Inside Sutton, Vestey announced he would not be seeking re-election in May. Living in Spain would disqualify him as a candidate. But Vestey did so too late for there to be a byelection to replace him in Hackbridge.
Vestey has been trousering more than £1,000 per month in council allowances since that July code of conduct meeting, despite being on leave of absence.
Another disciplinary meeting was held last week, on February 19, with Vestey in attendance only via a videolink.
The meeting confirmed that the Labour councillor had been guilty of disrespecting a colleague, of harassment and bullying, and of abusing his council email.
Among his many transgressions, Vestey had falsely implied that Alvarez had incited the execution of the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. Vestey had also used council email facilities in November 2023 to send allegations to all councillors and Sutton’s chief executive, Helen Bailey, that Alvarez was a racist and sexual predator, suggesting that he collected photos of naked councillors and council staff.
Following last week’s meeting, Vestey sent this email to Alvarez, copied to all Sutton councillors
Cllr Alvarez,
I apologise for the content of the two emails I sent to all Councillors in November 2023 where I made allegations about your conduct. I also apologise for my social media post made on 28 April 2024 linking you to other posts by third parties calling for the public execution of, by implication, the Mayor of London.
I accept the findings of the Code of Conduct Hearing Panel, held on 17 July 2025, the Code of Conduct Investigations and the conclusions that I breached the Code of Conduct in relation to those emails sent and the social media post.
As I included all Councillors in the circulation of the emails sent in November 2023, I am copying them into this apology email
Kind regards,
Councillor Sheldon Vestey
The investigations into Vestey’s conduct, carried out by Verina Wenham of specialist local government standards consultancy Hoey Ainscough Associates, has cost Sutton Council Tax-payers £14,000.
Harassment target: Cllr Steve Alvarez
According to sources, at the meeting Vestey tried to argue that any apology should include a reference to his belief that his offences were committed due to “safeguarding” issues. The committee was having none of this: the “safeguarding” issues had already been dismissed at the original code of conduct hearing nine months earlier.
Back in July, Wenham detailed Vestey’s harassment, bullying and allegations against Alvarez in the emails sent to all of Sutton’s councillors. It was suggested that some of Vestey’s emailed allegations were libellous.
Inside Sutton has seen Vestey’s emails. In one, he included a “crime reference number”, and encouraged fellow councillors to contact the police.
Vestey’s claims were “grossly exaggerated”, Wenham told the code of conduct panel.
At the same hearing, a councillor requested clarification on the intent of Vestey’s actions.
There was no doubt about the intent, said the investigator. Vestey’s comments “were not only inappropriate, but were offensive and meant to intimidate”.
Vestey had made claims that Alvarez had intimidated a council employee during a mediation process, which had seriously impacted that person’s mental health and caused the failure of the mediation. It is not known whether Vestey had permission to discuss the third party’s mental health.
However, Inside Sutton has seen documentary evidence from Sutton Council that says that the mediation ended because of Vestey’s on-going social media onslaught against Alvarez.
Less than three months out from local elections, the Sutton Labour Party has been silent on the shamed Vestey. Vestey had already been blamed for Labour losing one of the three council seats it won in 2022, when Sheila Berry resigned because she could no longer tolerate working with the Hackbridge councillor.
And Vestey kept his party colleagues in the dark about his move to Valencia, with Sutton Labour only discovering the councillor was on the Costas when they read about it on Inside Sutton.
And it’s not over yet.
On Monday, there is a report to a meeting of Sutton Council that details the breaches and sanctions. There, in among all the really important stuff about council budgets and Council Tax for 2026-2027, there’s a formal report that acknowledges Vestey’s apology to Alvarez and all councillors, and which censures him for failing to undertake the required training.
It could prove to be the final time in his inglorious and brief time as an elected councillor that Labour’s Sheldon Vestey gets a mention in Sutton Council minutes.
Olé!
Read more: Labour makes new U-turn as Señor Vestey opts to stand down
Read more: Sordid spat leads to Sutton Tory councillor’s suspension
Read more: The Help to Buy mortgage and councillor’s shifting interests
Read more: ‘Local’ councillor now based 1,000 miles from Hackbridge
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, as featured on Google News Showcase, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2026, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for an EIGHTH time in nine years, in Private Eye magazine’s annual round-up of civic cock-ups
- Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
Croydon got two Green plus one Lib-Dem councillor in 2022 to break the stranglehold of the Labour-Tory duopoly, which had destroyed Croydon Council over the past few decades, and both the Greens and Lib-Dems may be hoping for more gains in May’s next round of council elections(?)
Sutton had been a similar carve-up between the Lib-Dems and the Tories, but has had two labour councillors for the last four years. They will almost certainly lose their seats and allowances in May, but have the Green party got any hopes of making gains in Sutton ?
To paraphrase Carter USM’s Sheriff Fatman, as he is from the filthy rich Vestey family of meat processors, “Sheldon Vestey, the Master Butcher of Valencia-on-Sea” ?!
Now that he has admitted his guilt, I hope his victim sues for slander – and wins handsomely