A COUNCILLOR who taunted rivals by performing a chicken dance and singing soul classic 'War' has escaped formal punishment amid claims his human rights would have been breached.
Watchdogs cleared Alan O'Brien of wrongdoing after he was subject to seven complaints, which included describing a prominent Labour figure in North Lanarkshire as "plain dodgy" and comparing another with Pinocchio.
The Commissioner for Ethical Standards cleared the independent councillor of offensive behaviour because it had taken place in a "volatile and charged meeting" where there had been a tit-for-tat use of "forthright language",
It said comments later made by Mr O'Brien on social media, which one Labour complainant said were defamatory, were a continuation of the bad tempered meeting and protected under the European Convention of Human Rights.
The complaints arose last March during North Lanarkshire's full council meeting and were made by Labour councillor James Coyle and party colleague, the authority's deputy provost Jean Jones.
According to the Commissioner's report, after a motion was defeated calling for meetings to be webcast "the respondent had performed a brief ‘chicken’ impression, flexing his arms, dancing and making clucking sounds" and only sat down after being told "two or three times".
Mr O'Brien told the Commissioner: "I had a five minute speech prepared, they shortened it to three. I ran out of time but had scared them.
"I did a chicken dance to indicate that."
In describing the reaction of other members to his action, he said: “Half of them were laughing, half horrified and confused."
Later in the meeting, after calls to scrap a local regeneration board were rejected, Mr O'Brien quoted lyrics from the Edwin Starr classic 'War', which contains the line "What is it good for?".
The Commissioner's findings also state that stand-in chair, council leader Jim McCabe, had warned Mr O'Brien he faced being thrown out of the meeting "not (for) any references to lying, but had in fact related to his conduct in performing the ‘chicken dance’ and his partial rendition of the (Edwin Starr) song lyric".
Mr O'Brien was later removed from the meeting amid uproar in the chamber.
The report also records how Mr O'Brien later took to Facebook to describe the Labour Provost’s performance at the meeting to be "at best incompetent… at worst just plain dodgy", that Cllr McCulloch had lied to the electorate and "told a full on porky Pinocchio would have been proud of" and also accusing him of "liberating £200 to attend a posh dinner… completely off the books".
Referring to Cllr Barry McCulloch as Pinocchio, Mr O'Brien also claimed that "if Barry Pinocchio’s nose gets any bigger he won’t be able to turn round in his house".
But the findings concluded: "Whilst the comments may be evidence of a lack of respect, which appears not have been the sole preserve of the respondent, I considered that they were part of a continuing political argument and required, therefore, to be assessed within the context of the latitude which appears to have been allowed to political commentators in the implementation of Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights."
Meanwhile, a counter complaint by Mr O'Brien against three Labour councillors - Mr McCabe, Mr McCulloch and Mr Coyle - who he claimed had "interrupted him during the meeting and had repeatedly shouted that he was a liar and a fantasist" was also rejected by the Commissioner.
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