Annex 4
File note by the Office of the Parliamentary
Commissioner for Standards
FOLLOWING
UP
THE
COMMISSIONER'S
CORRESPONDENCE
WITH
COUNCILLOR
PIARA
SINGH
CLAIR
I spoke to Councillor Piara Singh Clair on the telephone
on Friday 15th December, to ask him for a reply to the Commissioner's
letter. Mr Singh Clair confirmed that he had got the letter. He
said that he would not give an answer over the phone to the questions
in the letter, because he had his notes at home. Instead he said
that he would post a reply and fax a letter to the Commissioner
for Monday morning, so that it would be in time for the Committee
meeting on Tuesday. I asked him if I could phone him on Monday,
at the Council's offices, if I had not received the letter by
then and he said yes.
On Monday, December 18th, I rang the Council's offices
in the afternoon and spoke to Alex Miles — — —
, who said that she would try and track down Councillor Clair.
She rang back and said that he had left for the day.
I next got a message from Alex to say that Councillor
Clair said that he had sent a hand written letter and had sent
it in the post. I asked if he could send a fax of the letter and
apologised for the inconvenience in advance. The next message
from him was there was no copy of it, I discussed the possibility
with Alex of typing another copy, which she said that she could
always do.
On Wednesday, December 20th, I rang again, when the
letter had still not arrived in the post and spoke to Alex. She
phoned back three times to tell me of the efforts she had made
in trying to contact Mr Singh these included leaving a pager,
phoning a mobile and contacting the shop floor where he worked.
In our final conversation she took the fax number for the office
and said that she'd spoken to Councillor Clair. He was working
on long shift until seven thirty. Then he said the he would write
out another letter and fax and post it again.
On Thursday December 21st, I rang Alex again, I checked
that I had given the correct fax number and she confirmed that
this was in the email that she had sent Councillor Singh Clair.
He had told her that he had sent the letter in the post last night
and faxed the letter. But it had not come through our machine.
I also checked the facts, of what had happened so far, for the
file note I was writing.
Alex also gave me the most current address for Councillor
Singh Clair which was: — — —.
21 December 2000
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