County Hall

THE PEMBROKESHIRE HERALD can reveal that Peter Morgan has discovered that pressure has more than one face and comes in more than one form over recent weeks.

On Saturday morning (Sept 27), after we published an article on-line based in part on a phone call that took place on Friday evening (Sept 26), Peter Morgan was contacted by members of the IPPG leadership. In those calls, Cllr Morgan was berated over his comments expressing support of David Simpson and those telling how pressure had been applied to him regarding the appearance he was then still due to make before the committee investigating allegations against the council’s CEO Bryn Parry-Jones.

When we spoke to Peter Morgan on Friday he told us: “I don’t do pressure.”

A member of the ruling group on Pembrokeshire County Council, Peter experienced pressure back in February. Having walked out of a meeting of the full council because he believed he had expressed a public opinion prejudging the issue to be debated (the future of Bryn Parry Jones), Peter – and Keith Lewis – were ordered back into the meeting by Deputy Chief Executive Ben Pykett as nobody had followed the pair on their trek to the moral high ground, and the IPPG might have lost the vote.

Quite what Mr Pykett thought he was doing interfering in the political activities of the council and the actions of its members is anyone’s guess.

After a subsequent council meeting, Peter Morgan was one of two councillors summoned to the presence of Chief Executive Bryn Parry-Jones and berated about voting against his personal interest in a vote.

Last Thursday, Peter spoke with his friend David Simpson. He told David about phone calls he had received and pressure that had been applied to him by members of the council’s leadership about evidence he was due to give about that incident.

Cllr Simpson was appalled by what his friend told him. He decided to resign as a result of what he had heard about the actions of Cllr Rob Lewis is seeking to influence Peter’s appearance before the investigatory committee.

Thankfully, due to the fact the editor’s office was locked on Friday evening when our chief writer was working on the report of Cllr Simpson’s resignation from the Cabinet and IPPG, he had to phone Cllr Morgan from The Pembrokeshire Herald’s sales room. In common with virtually all telesales rooms, calls made on the sales system are recorded.

On Monday (Sept 29), the same writer bumped into Peter Morgan outside Committee Room 2.

In the presence of another councillor, Cllr Morgan told him of the reaction to our online article. Phone calls had taken place on Saturday morning and Cllr Morgan left little doubt as to what those phone calls had been like and who had made them.

And after that Peter Morgan gave his evidence to the investigatory committee.

We cannot know what was said in private, but we can report the reaction to it.

After Cllr Morgan had finished his evidence he left Committee Room 2 with his fellow councillor and witness Mark Edwards. Shortly afterwards they were followed out by their friend and colleague David Simpson.

As it does not relate to evidence that was heard in Committee Room 2, we can safely report that whatever Cllr Morgan had told the Committee had caused Cllr Simpson to “have a face like thunder.”

Councillor Simpson asked Peter Morgan about elements of his evidence that varied sharply both from what he had said at Councillor Simpson’s home the previous Thursday and what he had told our reporter the following evening.

Councillor Morgan referred to the pressure put on him by – amongst others – Council Leader Jamie Adams. Jamie had told Peter that what he had said could mean the end of the Independent Group’s control of the County Council.

While this exchange took place the committee was in recess, and Cllr Mike Stoddart, then a member of the committee happened upon the scene. David Simpson left to fetch Keith Lewis, the Committee Chair so he could tell the chair the truth about what had happened.

Cllr Lewis reconvened the meeting to hear afresh from Cllr Morgan, only to find that – as he had once done on the rugby pitch – he had given his markers the slip and made a run for it.