SHIPTONTHORPE PARISH COUNCIL IS RUDDERLESS

17 October 2025

Last nights Shiptonthorpe Parish Council meeting began with an announcement that the current Parish Clerk had submitted her resignation. Tracey Loach was appointed at the beginning of 2024. No reason was given for her resignation.

Over 20 local residents were present, and several gave their views about the proposal to retrieve data from an old laptop.

Comments included:

We need to draw a line under this as we seem to be going backwards.

This seems like nothing more than self gratification for Cllr Gough.

When the agenda item about the forensic recovery of data from the laptop used by the former clerk came up for discussion the Chair Cllr Victor Lambert said he was not personally in favour of the motion, but Cllr Gough supported by three other councillors had forced the issue onto the agenda. He said:

“I believe this is a fishing expedition. A complete witch hunt and that this was not an acceptable use of public funds.

Since the matter was last discussed he said he had received no new evidence that supported the request, despite asking on a number of occasions”.

The previous chairman Robert Ducker said:

Shiptonthorpe Forward Together was now going backwards. You don’t go fishing when there are no fish and that David Gough had caused a lot of trouble with a capital ‘T’.

Cllr Richard Waring said that it was our (the councils) information and we should have it.

Vice Chair Stephen Powell strongly rebutted a number of points submitted by Cllr Gough about why it was necessary to conduct a forensic retrieval of data.

Cllr Powell said:

“A focussed data recovery could possibly be justified in certain circumstances, but this is not what is being proposed and there is currently no need to undertake any data recovery at all.

He warned that if anyone attempted to recover legitimately deleted e mails, they would set a precedent for any future council to do the same. He wondered who would step forward to be a councillor in the future if this was seen to be acceptable”.

His contribution received a round of applause from residents.

During an extended and fractious period of the meeting Cllr Gough came up with a number of reasons why it was necessary to retrieve all deleted data from the laptop. He was told by the chair on several occasions to focus on the motion, but he kept going off at tangents and giving dire warnings about how the council could find itself in trouble for breaching numerous regulations if it did not retrieve all the data.

During his ramble he seemed to suggest he knew a bloke who could get the data for about £500. At one point I thought he suggested he could do it himself, but I might be wrong.

When it came to a vote 3 Cllrs voted against and 3 in favour of data retrieval. The motion was defeated when the chair used his casting vote against pursuing retrieval.

David Gough responded by saying that he would report the matter to ERYC.

At the end of the meeting Chair Victor Lambert announced that he and Vice Chair Stephen Powell intended to resign as parish councillors effective after the meeting had closed.

Since the meeting Robert Ducker and Sarah Smith have also resigned as Parish Councillors

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