MEMBERS of the IPPG on Pembrokeshire County Council closed ranks to prevent the publication of a damning report into the Council’s handling of allegations of misconduct into paedophile social worker Mik Smith.

Smith had continued in the Council’s employment even after complaints of ‘grooming behaviour’ towards children had been made against him.

A motion proposing that the report be disclosed to the public was kicked into the long grass following a tied vote. It concerned whether a motion proposed by Hakin councillor Mike Stoddart should go forward or be remitted to the “never-never land” of a review by a Council committee.

Motions uncongenial to either officers or the IPPG have a record of disappearing in such a system, never to be heard of again, as has been remarked on by Cllr Stoddart on a number of occasions.

Although a recorded vote was not carried out, only one member of the Cabinet voted against the party line, St David’s councillor and Education spokesperson David Lloyd, who remains unattached to the IPPG. Former Cabinet members for education and children’s services Ken Rowlands, Sue Perkins and Huw George voted to keep the report under wraps.

As The Herald reported two years ago, the head of Pembrokeshire County Council’s youth services department gave paedophile Smith a positive reference on an application to register as a foster carer.

The reference was given following two council investigations into Smith’s inappropriate conduct towards children, which had resulted in Smith being given a written warning.

The same council officer gave Smith the positive reference for a 2010 fostering application as had previously handed down Smith’s written warning.

Two years ago, Mike Stoddart pointed out that: “The fostering application was thwarted because some of the panel members were aware of the history.

“It happened that somebody on the Fostering Panel happened to know so it was pure luck that saved us from a disaster and not good practice”.

As The Herald had previously revealed, claims made by IPPG leader Jamie Adams at a Council meeting in July 2014 that the Council’s former CE, Bryn Parry Jones,  knew nothing about the serious allegations made by colleagues against Mik Smith are untrue. We revealed the existence of a series of explosive internal documents that showed that when allegations were made about Mik Smith’s inappropriate conduct towards children, Council officers tried to sweep them under the carpet.

In March 2015, revealing that a second investigation was not carried out by an independent social worker but by a graduate trainee in the Chief Executive’s own department, Cllr Stoddart asked whether Mr Parry-Jones had ever explained, when asked about it by Cllr Adams as he had previously claimed in July 2014, why a similar child protection procedure involving social workers and the police wasn’t instigated following a second investigation in 2006.

The council leader answered: “I simply do not recall”.

Speaking impassionedly at Council on March 2, Cllr Stoddart told councillors that they had been systematically misled about what had happened in relation to Mik Smith: “What went on over this foster parent business is a disgrace; I’m determined to get this out in the open. It’s an even bigger disgrace that the youth worker who first exposed the matter was unceremoniously sacked while the person who had handed out references which made no mention of Mr Smith’s previous disciplinary record is sitting at home with a fat pension.

“That is an injustice I’m not prepared to tolerate.”

Following the tied vote, Chair Tony Brinsden, voted in line with the recommendation not to publish the report.

However, the drama did not end there as Labour leader Paul Miller pointed out a discrepancy between the number of votes cast, including abstentions and the number of councillors present. He was told by Monitoring Officer, Claire Jones that it was some possible some councillors present had neither voted nor abstained.