Police and Conservatives to take no further action against row councillor David Carr - Kent

From Kent Online

Police will take no action against a councillor who resigned from the cabinet after saying Travellers “screw everything up”.

Medway councillor David Carr will also remain a member of the Conservative party after his remarks during an interview with the Medway Messenger.

The 74-year-old former mayor said: “Why don’t they learn to live like everybody else does? ... They crap all over the place, they p*ss over the field, they throw rubbish all over the place.”

The Gypsy Council urged police to pursue a prosecution for inciting racial hatred.

Now a police spokesman has confirmed Cllr Carr, whose role included allocating Traveller sites, was spoken to and no further action will be taken.

He was not arrested or interviewed under caution.

Cllr Carr will also remain a councillor and a member of the Gillingham and Rainham Conservative Association after he made a public apology.

Chairman John Amey said: “The decision of our executive committee is we’re not going to take any further action against Cllr Carr.

“We feel he’s lost his job as portfolio holder in the cabinet and I think that’s quite a blow to him. He’s been a councillor for five or six years and he just gets a cabinet job and loses it.

“He’s shown he’s aware he said more than he should have done and he said it in a very inappropriate way.”

However, Cllr Carr could still face a hearing before Medway Council’s code of conduct committee, which he previously chaired.

Gypsy Council chairman Joseph Jones said his members intended to make a formal complaint to the committee.

“I’ve informed Medway Council of that and we’re just waiting for advice from our legal team. He has to abide by the code of conduct.”

Cllr Carr’s comments were previously denounced as “more akin to Nick Griffin and the BNP” by his Rainham North ward colleague Cllr Vaughan Hewett.

But many of our readers agreed with him. Shirley Knott said: “My mother taught me to ‘tell the truth and shame the devil’. Nowadays it’s ‘tell the truth, lose your job and get castigated in the press’. Who says free speech is alive and kicking?”

Cllr Peter Hicks (Con) has taken over as cabinet member for community safety. Cllr Carr said he had no further comment.