Jackie Weaver did not actually have the power to remove people from Zoom calls and mute fellow councillors, an investigation has found.
Ms Weaver reached online fame last February – when a video of her keeping her cool as colleagues shouted at and insulted her went viral.
At one point, she threatened to virtually eject misbehaving Handforth Parish Council members, to which chairman Brian Tolver said: ‘You have no authority here Jackie Weaver, no authority at all’.
As the meeting’s clerk, Ms Weaver removed Mr Tolver, promoting further disagreement with vice-chairman Aled Brewerton, who screamed that Ms Weaver should ‘read the standing orders and understand them’.
Cheshire East Council has since spent more than £85,000 investigating the rows at what has now been renamed the Handforth Town Council.
Ms Weaver said the name change was decided on in an attempt to move on from its ‘toxic’ past.
The probe ended with six reports totalling 145 pages and concluded that Ms Weaver did not have the authority to remove people from meetings.
Three of the reports were dedicated to that infamous meeting and one explicitly says Ms Weaver ‘was not acting in an official capacity’.
However, the reports did go on to say that it was understandable why she reacted the way she did.
They said: ‘Faced with what were unusual and difficult circumstances, and the deep-seated issues underpinning those circumstances, we can understand why Jackie Weaver acted as she did, despite her action being without any formal footing in terms of appropriate process and procedure.’
Ms Weaver told the BBC she ‘welcomed the findings’ but explained that all councillors were ‘still very vague’ about how virtual meetings should be run.
She also stressed that she actually moved the men in question into a virtual waiting room before the remaining councillors voted to remove them.
The reports also concluded that three former councillors – who all resigned – had breached parts of the Code of the Conduct.
Three current councillors were cleared of breaching the rules but were told their ‘behaviour cannot be said to be exemplary’.
The councillors who resigned said they do not recognise the independent investigation’s findings as ‘valid’.
In a statement, the trio said: ‘In terms of the findings of the reports, we wholly refute the findings and view them as being extreme fiction.
‘The investigations were in our opinion conducted with more than an air of mendacity.
‘We did not, at any time, breach the code of conduct and now plan to fully contest these findings.’
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