Former DUP councillor Luke Poots has been disqualified from holding office for four years after a watchdog found he committed multiple breaches of the councillors’ code of conduct.
The sanction was imposed on the former Lisburn and Castlereagh borough representative and son of DUP MLA Edwin Poots by the Northern Ireland local government standards commissioner following an adjudication hearing on Thursday.
Assistant Commissioner for Standards Ian Gordon ruled that Luke Poots had breached the local government code of conduct by failing to declare a conflict of interest while sitting on the council’s planning committee between 2015 and 2019.
Mr Gordon made reference to a planning application submitted originally in the maiden name of the ex-councillor’s mother and the lack of clarity in the original application that he was a joint owner of the land.
The probe found that between February 2016 and February 2018 there were 35 occasions when Mr Poots was present when his father spoke at the planning committee either in favour of or against a planning application.
“On more than half of those occasions, the former councillor did not declare any conflict of interest,” the watchdog stated.
“He also remained in the planning committee and participated in the decision-making process in relation to all 35 applications.”
The investigation also said Mr Poots received legal advice that his father speaking on specific planning applications at meetings when he was participating in the committee “could give the appearance of bias”.
Mr Gordon referred to the councillors’ code of conduct, which states that if there are conflicts of interest councillors should make a declaration and withdraw from the meeting.
He considered that in not doing so members of the public could conclude that Mr Poots had “not acted fairly”.
Mr Poots did not attend the hearing on Thursday, which was told he had “failed to attend for interview on 10 occasions” during the course of investigations.
The assistant commissioner concluded that amid the “multiple breaches of the code over a long period of time and the former councillor’s non-cooperation with the process...that a disqualification of four years was an appropriate sanction”.
In a statement on Thursday evening issued through his solicitor Mr Poots denied breaching the code and claimed that “my Article 6 Humans Rights have been breached”.
The former councillor claimed that he had “at all stages acted in the best interests of all constituents”
“At no time did I breach the code of conduct for Councillors,” he insisted adding that “representing the people of Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council was the greatest honour of my life.”
