Parish to review minutes of Constable's legal fees meeting

Wednesday 25 November 2020

A Parish Assembly will tonight be asked to consider the minutes of the meeting in which it was revealed that St. John's Constable had used ratepayers' money to pay his dangerous driving case legal bills.

The Assembly is taking place in St. John's Parish Hall at 19:30 to consider a licensing application and consider and, "if deemed advisable", approve the minutes of the previous Parish Assembly from 15 July 2020.

It was during that meeting that the Assembly received the Parish accounts which showed an “unexpected” £7,000 overspend on 'Legal and Professional Fees' - far higher than the £3,000 budgeted.

As Express reported at the time, it was only following scrutiny by Reverend Beverley Sproats and her fellow churchwardens, who challenged the £10,033 figure, that it was revealed the rise was due to the Constable’s legal bills being covered by the Parish in relation to a charge of driving dangerously on Rue du Bechet ès Cats in Trinity, on 2 June last year. 

Pictured: St. John Constable Chris Taylor was convicted of dangerous driving in the Magistrate's Court.

Attempts were made to justify the spending on the basis that Chris Taylor had been acting in his official role at the time of the alleged offence. Amid mounting fury from parishioners, the Constable agreed to personally pay back the £7,000.

Chris Taylor had denied deliberately driving his red Ford Fiesta into the legs of a cycling race marshal, an off-duty police officer, at low speed during a dispute in Trinity last June but was found guilty of dangerous driving following a day-long trial in the Magistrate's Court. He received a £4,000 fine and a 18-month driving ban.

When handing down her conclusions, Relief Magistrate Sarah Fitz said she was concerned about the deliberate nature of Taylor’s driving and “the apparent use of a vehicle as intimidation or a weapon."

Pictured: The Constable and the Parish's Procureurs will be called before a panel of jurats known as the Inferior Number in the Royal Court.

The Royal Court has since been asked to decide whether Chris Taylor's actions which led to his conviction for dangerous driving fell short of the standards expected of him and constitute a breach of his oath of office.

In addition, the Attorney General, Mark Temple, has asked the Royal Court to consider whether the Constable and two of the parish’s Procureurs, Stephen Hewlett and Michel Larose, failed in their duty to protect the parish’s finances.

The Royal Court has an "inherent supervisory jurisdiction" over the Connétables and other officers, including the Procureurs du Bien Public, who are responsible for managing parish accounts.

The matter will be heard by a panel of jurats known as the Inferior Number in the Royal Court at later date.

CLICK HERE to see the agenda for tonight's parish meeting.