Ex-mayor did not respond to Hackney paedophile councillor probe

Tom Dewey was elected in May 2022, days after the National Crime Agency raided the house he lived in as a house share with then Mayor Philip Glanville.

Dewey resigned 11 days after he was elected - but Mr Glanville was suspended by Labour and later resigned after a picture emerged of him at a Eurovision party with Dewey on the same day he was told of Dewey’s arrest.

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The independent review, announced in September, concluded very little could have been done to stop Dewey from becoming an elected councillor, despite his arrest for possessing indecent images of children.

Head of the internal review John Henderson told councillors during a scrutiny panel hearing on Tuesday (January 30) that it was “rather unfortunate” that neither Dewey or Mr Glanville responded to his request for an interview.

Henderson, a former chief executive at Staffordshire County Council, said Dewey was a “very ambitious young man,” who targeted the council as a “springboard” for his career, working as a council officer for two years before running for office.

Tom Dewey eelcted to De Beauvoir May 2022, pic Julia Gregory, free for use by partners of BBC news wire service

Henderson said that in strictly legal terms, Dewey had been a councillor for “about 10 hours” from the moment he signed his councillor declaration and his resignation.

The borough’s interim chief executive Dawn Carter-McDonald said they were not aware he had any official contact with children in his capacity as a councillor.

However, Ms Carter-McDonald could not comment on what contact he had with children “prior to being elected,” but she said it was likely he would have been limited by his bail conditions, which he was on when the council found out about his arrest in May 2022.

He was given an initial list of names to contact, many which resulted as follow-up interviews after he was tipped off about members he should speak to. In total, he interviewed around 15 people at the town hall.

John Henderson with Hackney interim chief executive Dawn Carter-McDonal at the scrutiny panel

“I didn’t follow-up with any of his [Dewey’s] contacts. None of them were named to me, it has to be said. Nobody said ‘he’s best friends with X, you need to speak to them’. Had they done so, I would have followed up, but they were never named, and that was quite telling,” Mr Henderson explained.

There was a “mixture of disgust and shame” among the officers he spoke to, he said.

Mr Henderson said he couldn’t just email Dewey due to GDPR and it was “quite difficult to find an officer who was willing to contact him”.

A councillor told the investigation that there was a whistle-blower, but in the end no-one came forward through the official whistle-blowing channel.

At the scrutiny panel on Tuesday, Cllr Penny Wrout said she was concerned the council told publicly at the time of Dewey’s resignation he had stepped down due to ‘personal reasons’.

“It potentially casts doubt on those in the future who do want to step down for genuine personal reasons that they want to keep private like serious health issues or family reasons,” she pointed out.

Mr Henderson supported the course of action taken by the council, saying it was better to err to the side of caution and announce limited details regarding his resignation, which was the legal advice the council was given at the time.

He said despite the temptation to either over or underreact, the council got their response “about as right as you possibly can” after finding out about Dewey’s arrest.

However, the scandal has been a “very damaging episode” for Hackney Council both externally and internally, Henderson said.

He told the council’s political groups to reassess how they select candidates, and the council should review more widely the “culture around political impartiality” of officers.