‘Bully’ row ex-councillor plans Town Hall return

Ex-jockey Hazel Foster gets back on the horse

A former Torbay councillor who was censured for bullying a council officer in a Zoom meeting is planning a return to the council chamber.

Hazel Foster stepped back from all her roles on council committees and apologised after being found to have brought the council into disrepute in 2021.

The former jockey and business owner was not re-elected at the 2023 council elections, but will now stand for the Conservatives in the forthcoming Wellswood by-election on 6 June. The poll has been brought about by the death of Cllr Patrick Joyce.

Cllr Joyce was elected as a Conservative in 2023 but later left the party ranks to form the Prosper Torbay group with Cllr Katya Maddison, who had also left the Tory group.

The pair held the balance of power in the council chamber, and the June poll will be crucial for the political balance of the powerful authority. It comes in a ward which has traditionally been a Conservative stronghold.

Mrs Foster, whose husband is Torbay’s Conservative MP, was a councillor for the St Marychurch ward at the time of the online meeting controversy.

She was found to have brought Torbay Council into disrepute when, following an administrative mix-up, she tried to drive through a committee membership which had a disproportionate number of Conservative members listed on it by mistake.

An independent investigation revealed that during a heated hour-long debate that followed, the council clerk became visibly distressed and left the meeting.

Mrs Foster was told to carry out ‘acceptable behaviour training’ after the incident, in which the current Conservative leader of the council, David Thomas, who was at the time leading the Tory opposition group, was also found to have breached the council’s code of conduct.

At the time Mrs Foster said she accepted the findings and would send a sincere letter of apology to the clerk involved.

Mrs Foster stood for re-election in St Marychurch last year but finished fourth in the polls, with three Liberal Democrat councillors elected ahead of her.

She has already begun campaigning in Wellswood ahead of the 6 June poll.

She said: “This by-election must be about taking our community forward, not back to the delays and dithering of the Lib Dem\Independent coalition, which voters rejected 12 months ago. I have the drive, energy and experience to make the difference for residents and deliver for Wellswood.”