FARNHAM town councillor and former theatrical costumier Victor Scrivens was back serving his suspension from duty this week, after winning a top judge's sympathy, but failing to overturn the decision made against him by the Adjudication Panel for England. Mr Scrivens was suspended for four months on December 7 last year after the panel said he should have declared a prejudicial interest and withdrawn from an amenities committee meeting on January 23, 2003, at which a funding application by the New Farnham Repertory Company (NFRC) was being discussed. He had previously hired out costumes to NFRC through his theatrical clothes hire business, Measure for Measure, at cost, and had allowed the company box office space in his shop, free of charge. The councillor had declared a "personal interest" in the matter, but not a "prejudicial" one, Mr Justice Stanley Burnton told London's High Court on Monday. The Adjudication Panel also said Mr Scrivens should have declared a personal interest at a plans panel meeting on March 13, 2003, which concerned a variation of a planning condition relating to 22 Downing Street, Farnham. But a further allegation, that he had failed to declare an interest at a finance and general purposes group meeting on February 20, 2003, - at which a disabled access grant for St Andrew's Church, Farnham, was being mooted - was rejected. Mr Scrivens was a member of the congregation and, until recently, had been a member of the Friends of St Andrews. He had also accepted appointment as an honourary sidesman, but the Adjudication Panel found he had not breached the council's code of conduct. The councillor mounted a High Court challenge to the decisions against him, covering a legal costs bill believed to amount to around £10,000 from his own pocket. And, expressing sympathy for Mr Scrivens, Mr Justice Burnton said his infringements of the code of conduct were, on any view, "at the lower end of the spectrum of seriousness". The judge said the court challenge raised "an important issue as to the correct test to be applied in determining whether a councillor has failed to comply with the provisions of the code in relation to personal and prejudicial interests.". But he rejected Mr Scrivens' plea that the test should be a "subjective" one and that, because he had "reasonably but mistakenly" taken the view he had no interests to declare, he had done nothing wrong. The judge said that such a legal test would "confer considerable latitude on the conduct" of councillors and would "seriously detract from the express object" of rules designed to "promote and maintain high standards of conduct" by elected council members. If Mr Scrivens' arguments were correct, there would also be "curious consequences" that would "give risk to practical difficulties and inconsistencies", the judge remarked. He said the Adjudication Panel had correctly applied the "objective" test when it simply asked itself, "does the councillor have a personal or prejudicial interest?" And the judge added: "It is irrelevant, on this test, whether the member honestly and reasonably believes that he had no relevant interest". Gordon Nardell, for Mr Scrivens, said he had paid for the court challenge out of his own pocket and was not planning to take the case further to the Court of Appeal. The councillor had served two months of his suspension by the time it was deferred pending the appeal and therefore has two months yet to serve. Mr Scrivens told The Herald that he did not regret pursuing what was effectively a test case at law. "Fellow councillors now know where they stand and it clarifies the Code of Practice," he observed. "Unfortunately the judge decided against my views, but it does clear up an issue - that the concept of taking reasonable decisions is not available to us. Decisions must be objective rather than subjective." He said he found it sad that councillors were in the situation where the mistaken but reasonable view was irrelevant, "but one has to accept that one's judgement was wrong, in those circumstances". It had, he said, been a matter of integrity and honour. "People seem to think, and I am sure they will think, that there was money changing hands in a bad sense, and that is simply not the case." Of the decision not to press the matter all the way to the Court of Appeal, he said: "I cannot afford to pursue it further. Even if the case had gone for me, I could not claim any money back and I think that is very sad." He concluded: "It has taken two years since this all started. It has been a long time and at least from that point of view it is over and now I have to get on with the job of being a borough councillor, which I intend to do."
