An aspiring Scottish Socialist Party MSP who helped safeguard the future of an under-threat care facility at the centre of a sit-in by two elderly residents has been suspended from attending meetings of his local authority.
The complaint against Jim Bollan, an SSP councillor on West Dunbartonshire Council and list candidate at the forthcoming Holyrood elections, was made by Tim Huntington, former chief executive of the beleaguered local authority. It was upheld at a hearing in Clydebank In February.
Mr Bollan was found to have insulted Theresa Westwood, unit manager of the Leven Cottage residential home, using "threatening, intimidating, discourteous, derogatory and disrespectful" language.
The community facility was under threat of demolition by the council, who wanted to turn it into luxury flats. Two defiant pensioners, Robert Toole, 76, and Annie Cardiff, 86, staged a four-month sit-in in protest, even spending Christmas there. The pair were accompanied on numerous occasions by Mr Bolan.
In a U-turn last year however, the local authority backed down and decided to sell the Alexandria facility to Cordale Housing Association, thereby safeguarding its future.
At the commission hearing, Mr Bollan did concede that he told Mrs Westwood she was in the "wrong profession" in March last year, and telling her to "f... off" and calling her a "liar."
Mrs Westwood, the commission heard, was left feeling "degraded, devastated and intimidated" following the incident.
Mr Bollan's six-month suspension from attending council and committee meetings came into force on February 26. The details of his suspension will be brought before a full meeting of West Dunbartonshire Council today.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article