News

Audit Committee in disarray

Published

11 years ago

December 18, 2014

Tom Sinclair

Questions: One of the properties in Meyrick Street, Pembroke Dock

THE COUNCIL’S continuing reluctance to release correspondence relating to its relationship with controversial Irish property developer Cathal McCosker is raising fears of another cover up at County Hall. Mr McCosker, the so-called ‘Baron of the Bedsits’, received hundreds of thousands of pounds in grants to renovate properties in Pembroke Dock. Instead of allowing scrutiny of his bank accounts when pressed, however, Mr McCosker reached a deal with the Council to repay a rumoured £180,000 to the local authority. It is the correspondence between the Council and Mr McCosker which was the subject of a motion calling for its disclosure, which was debated at a meeting of the Council’s Audit Committee on Monday December 1.

The meeting began inauspiciously. Lay member of the committee and its Chair, retired Morgan Cole partner Peter Jones, was absent.Normally, when a committee chair is unavailable the vice chair takes over handling the committee’s business. In this case, the vice chair of the committee is IPPG councillor Mike James. In the normal course of things, one would expect him to step into the vacant chair. However, the Audit Committee is a special case.

The rules governing the Audit Committee are covered by a piece of legislation called the Local Government Measure (Wales) 2011. It is a piece of legislation that has its own Guidance Notes which councils and their legal officers must make sure they follow. “It is permissible for only one of the committee’s members to be from the council’s executive, and this must not be the leader (or elected mayor). The council must have regard to this guidance when determining the membership of its audit committee. The chair of the committee is to be decided upon by the committee members themselves.

It can be a councillor or a lay member but, in the former case, must not be a councillor who belongs to a group with members in the executive.” The purpose of the guidance is, therefore, to make it clear that whoever chairs the committee it cannot be a member of a group with an interest in preserving the status quo. As one of the roles of the executive is to scrutinise a council’s internal financial controls, having a member of the ruling group deciding how that function should be transacted is inappropriate.

East Williamston representative Jacob Williams challenged Mike James’ chairing of the Committee and pointed out that correct legal position. He pointed out that it was for the committee members to appoint a chair for the meeting and that the chair could not be a member of the ruling group. Acting Head of Legal Services, Claire Incledon, was summoned from her garret to help the Committee reach a decision. Ms Incledon took the view that there was nothing in the rules to prevent the blameless Mike James from taking over the committee’s transaction of business on Monday.

The IPPG councillors on the committee ensured that her view was followed on nothing harder than the basis that Ms Incledon was a lawyer who should know her stuff, regardless of what the law actually said. So, Mike James chaired the meeting: a move which calls into question whether any of Monday’s business was lawfully transacted. The substantive order of business before the Committee related to Cllr Mike Stoddart’s motion to ensure that councillors had the chance to scrutinise how and in what circumstances the authority had decided to settle up with Mr McCosker.

Detective Sergeant Lewis of Dyfed Powys Police, who was attending the committee to assist it with its enquiries, confirmed that no arrests had been made, no charges brought, and no court proceedings were pending. Claire Incledon intervened. This move, she told the Committee, would involve the council breaking the sub judice rules. Since March, Council Leader Jamie Adams and others on the IPPG benches have repeatedly and persistently misused the sub judice rule to stifle debate on the grants scandal.

Experienced newspaper proprietor that he was, Mike Stoddart pointed out with some force that the Contempt of Court Act and the sub judice rule it enshrines was not applicable. The Contempt of Court Act only bites when arrests have been made, charges brought and court proceedings are either pending or ongoing. As none of those circumstances applied, the sub judice argument was nonsense. While the police objected to the release of records under Article 6 of the Human Rights Act, it was argued that the limited circulation of the material to which Cllr Stoddart wanted access would not lead to any unfair trial, as the material would be treated confidentially.

In similar circumstances in January of this year, Monitoring Officer Laurence Harding was compelled to acquiesce in the request to release documents for councillors’ examination. On that occasion, of course, the Committee was under the robust leadership of John Evans MBE, who later resigned in disgust at the failure of the Council to respond responsibly to legitimate public concerns. Speaking to The Herald, Mike Stoddart said: “What an absolute shambles! First the IPPG members used their 4:2 majority to elect one of their own as chairman despite having it explained to them by Cllr Jacob Williams that such an appointment was clearly against the law. This constitutionally defective committee then went on to reject my Notice of Motion on the basis of what were clear misrepresentations of the Human Rights Act and the sub judice rules.”

Crime

Swansea man dies weeks after release from troubled HMP Parc: Investigation launched

Published

4 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Tom Sinclair

A SWANSEA man has died just weeks after being released from HMP Parc, the Bridgend prison now at the centre of a national crisis over inmate deaths and post-release failures.

Darren Thomas, aged 52, died on 13 November 2025 — less than a month after leaving custody. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) has confirmed an independent investigation into his death, which is currently listed as “in progress”.

Born on 9 April 1973, Mr Thomas had been under post-release supervision following a period at HMP/YOI Parc, the G4S-run prison that recorded seventeen deaths in custody in 2024 — the highest in the UK.

His last known legal appearance was at Swansea Crown Court in October 2024, where he stood trial accused of making a threatening phone call and two counts of criminal damage. During the hearing, reported by The Pembrokeshire Herald at the time, the court heard he made threats during a heated call on 5 October 2023.

Mr Thomas denied the allegations but was found guilty on all counts. He was sentenced to a custodial term, which led to his imprisonment at HMP Parc.

Parc: A prison in breakdown

HMP Parc has faced sustained criticism throughout 2024 and 2025. A damning unannounced inspection in January found:

Severe self-harm incidents up 190%
Violence against staff up 109%
Synthetic drugs “easily accessible” across wings
Overcrowding at 108% capacity

In the first three months of 2024 alone, ten men died at Parc — part of a wider cluster of twenty PPO-investigated deaths since 2022. Six occurred within three weeks, all linked to synthetic drug use.

Leaked staff messages in 2025 exposed a culture of indifference, including one officer writing: “Let’s push him to go tomorrow so we can drop him.”

Six G4S employees have been arrested since 2023 in connection with alleged assaults and misconduct.

The danger after release

Deaths shortly after release from custody are a growing national concern. Ministry of Justice data shows 620 people died while under community supervision in 2024–2025, with 62 deaths occurring within 14 days of release.

Short sentences — common at Parc — leave little time for effective rehabilitation or release planning. Homelessness, loss of drug tolerance and untreated mental-health conditions create a high-risk environment for those newly released.

The PPO investigates all such deaths to determine whether prisons or probation failed in their duties. Reports often take 6–12 months and can lead to recommendations.

A system at breaking point

The crisis at Parc reflects wider failures across UK prisons and probation. A July 2025 House of Lords report described the service as “not fit for purpose”. More than 500 people die in custody annually, with campaigners warning that private prisons such as Parc prioritise cost-cutting over care.

The PPO investigation into the death of Darren Thomas continues.

Crime

Woman stabbed partner in Haverfordwest before handing herself in

Published

4 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Court Reporter

A WOMAN who stabbed her partner during a drug-fuelled episode walked straight into Haverfordwest Police Station and told officers what she had done, Swansea Crown Court has heard.

Amy Woolston, 22, of Dartmouth Street in Milford Haven, arrived at the station at around 8:00pm on June 13 and said: “I stabbed my ex-partner earlier… he’s alright and he let me walk off,” prosecutor Tom Scapens told the court.

The pair had taken acid together earlier in the day, and Woolston claimed she believed she could feel “stab marks in her back” before the incident.

Police find victim with four wounds

Officers went to the victim’s home to check on him. He was not there at first, but returned shortly afterwards. He appeared sober and told police: “Just a couple of things,” before pointing to injuries on his back.

He had three stab or puncture wounds to his back and another to his bicep.

The victim said that when he arrived home from the shop, Woolston was acting “a bit shifty”. After asking if she was alright, she grabbed something from the windowsill — described as either a knife or a shard of glass — and stabbed him.

He told officers he had “had worse from her before”, did not support a prosecution, and refused to go to hospital.

Defendant has long history of violence

Woolston pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding. The court heard she had amassed 20 previous convictions from 10 court appearances, including assaults, battery, and offences against emergency workers.

Defending, Dyfed Thomas said Woolston had longstanding mental health problems and had been off medication prescribed for paranoid schizophrenia at the time.
“She’s had a difficult upbringing,” he added, saying she was remorseful and now compliant with treatment.

Woolston was jailed for 12 months, but the court heard she has already served the equivalent time on remand and will be released imminently on a 12-month licence.

News

BBC apologises to Herald’s editor for inaccurate story

Published

6 hours ago

December 4, 2025

Staff Writer

THE BBC has issued a formal apology and amended a six-year-old article written by BBC Wales Business Correspondent Huw Thomas after its Executive Complaints Unit ruled that the original headline and wording gave an “incorrect impression” that Herald editor Tom Sinclair was personally liable for tens of thousands of pounds in debt.

The 2019 report, originally headlined “Herald newspaper editor Tom Sinclair has £70,000 debts”, has now been changed.

The ECU found: “The wording of the article and its headline could have led readers to form the incorrect impression that the debt was Mr Sinclair’s personal responsibility… In that respect the article failed to meet the BBC’s standards of due accuracy.”

Mr Sinclair said: “I’m grateful to the ECU for the apology and for correcting the personal-liability impression that caused real harm for six years. However, the article still links the debts to ‘the group which publishes The Herald’ when in fact they related to printing companies that were dissolved two years before the Herald was founded in 2013. I have asked the BBC to add that final clarification so the record is completely accurate.”

A formal apology and correction of this kind from the BBC is extremely rare, especially for a story more than six years old.