Wyndham council has quashed a complaint against former mayor Peter Maynard – but will not provide details of its investigation.
Lewis Freeman-Harrison, an independent candidate for Lalor at this year’s federal election, filed a complaint against Cr Maynard last October, claiming the councillor had verbally abused him during the Wyndham mayoral election.
Last week, acting chief executive Steven Lambert said that following an independent investigation, the council had not upheld the complaint.
The council refused to release a copy of the investigator’s report and would not answer Star Weekly’s questions about how the investigation was run or why the complaint was not upheld.
“As with many organisations, the lodging of a formal complaint and subsequent independent investigation is treated by council as a confidential process,” Mr Lambert said. “It would be inappropriate to provide specific details.”
Mr Freeman-Harrison, who has been banned from distributing the report, said he was disappointed with the decision.
“I think the investigator did everything they could probably do,” he said. “I guess it’s hard. I really needed a pin camera on me. I didn’t have enough evidence. I didn’t have a witness and I understand it was a ‘he said, she said’ scenario.”
Cr Maynard refused to comment.
