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28
Aug 2020
Harrogate council leader fails to answer questions about Cllr Samantha Mearns
Harrogate Borough Council and its leader have remained tight-lipped about Cllr Samantha Mearns and a police investigation into missing Porsche cars worth more than a million pounds.
Cllr Mearns was company secretary and a person "of significant control" in Knaresborough based Gmund Cars Ltd until December 2018. The company, which was run by her husband Andrew, went into administration in July 2019. There has been a subsequent police investigation into allegations that the ownership of Porsches were transferred without the owners' permission.
Cllr Richard Cooper, the leader of Harrogate Borough Council, made Cllr Mearns the chair of the General Purposes Committee which oversees the conduct of councillors. She chaired her first meeting in June 2019.
The Stray Ferret asked Cllr Richard Cooper whether he has confidence in Cllr Mearns, when he was first made aware of the allegations and whether he has ever asked Cllr Mearns about her role at Gmund Cars Ltd.
Read more:
- Harrogate MP aide and councillor at centre of £1 million Porsche investigation
- How Harrogate Borough Council responded to a complaint around Cllr Mearns and Gmund Cars
- Harrogate MP refuses to answer Porsche investigation questions
We gave him a full day to respond to our request and we also gave Harrogate Borough Council two days to respond to a similar line of questions. Cllr Mearns is a case worker for Andrew Jones MP. He has also refused to answer the Stray Ferret's questions.
Anthony Place, one of the six alleged victims of Gmund Cars Ltd, lodged a complaint about Cllr Mearns to Harrogate Borough Council in June 2019.
The authority's monitoring officer, Jennifer Norton, assessed the complaint and said it would not be something she could take further because the councillor was “not engaged in council business” so the rules of the code of conduct did not apply.
North Yorkshire Police is investigating the allegations and arrested a man in his fifties in July last year. He has not been charged and the force released him under investigation.
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