A Fife MP who was described as “an odious creature” by a leading SNP councillor in a New Year Facebook post is still waiting for a personal letter of apology more than four months after the comment appeared.
Glenrothes and Central Fife MP Lindsay Roy says he is deeply disappointed by the failure of John Beare who has been criticised by the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland and a senior Fife Council official over his remark to write to him.
In a comment to a post made by fellow SNP councillor David Alexander on January 1, Mr Beare said Mr Roy was “an odious creature who has done nothing for this town. Nothing new, just the same old negative tripe”.
Following the appearance of the message, the MP wrote to Mr Beare, who is chairman of the council’s standards and audit committee, demanding he remove the offensive remarks immediately and issue a full and unreserved apology in writing.
He also wrote to Fife Council’s chief executive and the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life to ask them to investigate.
Mr Beare publicly apologised for his comment when contacted by the press, but it took several days before the message was removed completely from Facebook and Mr Roy is still waiting for his personal apology, despite apparent assurances given by the Markinch councillor that he would do so.
The complaint to Fife Council was investigated by Andrew Ferguson, manager of committee services, who wrote to Mr Roy to state that the wording of the post was “to say the least, unfortunate.”
Mr Ferguson added that having taken into account that Councillor Beare removed the post as soon as it was complained of, and had issued an apology, albeit via the media, he did not intend to take further action “on the basis that he Mr Beare) restates that apology by way of a personal letter to you.”
After investigating the complaint, the Commissioner wrote to Mr Roy at the end of March and sent a copy of the letter to Mr Beare.
He stated: “I consider that the remarks made by the respondent (Mr Beare) fell well below the standard of conduct I would expect and reflected little personal credit on him.”
The Commissioner added: His subsequent public apology was, in my view, necessary and appropriate, as indeed was the subsequent letter of apology.”
However, Mr Roy said he has to date received no such letter.
He said: “I wrote to John Beare on January 13 demanding a full and unreserved written apology.
“He did make a press apology of sorts when contacted about the Facebook message by The Courier, but this was little short of a wriggle-out-of-a-bad-situation exercise and is completely insufficient in view of the highly offensive remark he made about me.
“In his letter to me about his investigation, Andrew Ferguson stated: “I do not intend to take further action at this stage on the basis that he now restates that apology by way of a personal letter to you.”
The MP continued: “I agreed with Mr Ferguson that I would give Councillor Beare until the end of April to submit his written apology to me. No such letter has been received.
“John Beare clearly thinks he can get away with making vile remarks and also ignore the requirement to apologise personally for his actions, as both the commissioner and Mr Ferguson deemed necessary.”
The Courier made repeated efforts to obtain a comment from Mr Beare but he did not respond.