Jackie Weaver did not have the authority - Handforth Parish Council rules

Jackie Weaver did not have the authority - Handforth Parish Council rules
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Samantha Haynes

By Samantha Haynes


Published: 29/03/2022

- 19:06

Updated: 14/02/2023

- 11:59

Jackie Weaver became a household name when the previous Handforth Parish Council chairman Brian Tolver said she had “no authority here” in a Zoom meeting

Cheshire East Council have published six reports which investigate the behaviour of councillors at Handforth Parish Council after a video involving Jackie Weaver went viral.

Three reports addressed complaints prior to the viral meeting and three looked at behaviour in the meeting when Jackie Weaver removed then-chair Brian Tolver from the Zoom call and placed him in a virtual waiting room.


One found that Ms Weaver "was not acting in an official capacity at these meetings".

The report added Ms Weaver believed her actions were necessary given the behaviour of some of the councillors.

Screengrab dated 15/12/21 of parish clerk Jackie Weaver, who took the internet by storm when footage of Handforth Parish Council's heated Zoom meeting showed her booting out two troublesome council members and being famously told \%22you have no authority here\%22. Issue date: Monday December 27, 2021.
Screengrab dated 15/12/21 of parish clerk Jackie Weaver, who took the internet by storm when footage of Handforth Parish Council's heated Zoom meeting showed her booting out two troublesome council members and being famously told "you have no authority here". Issue date: Monday December 27, 2021.
PA

A video recording of the December Handforth Parish Council meeting gained more than six million views after being published on Twitter in February.

The meeting also made the stand-in clerk Jackie Weaver a household name when then-chairman Brian Tolver’s remark she had “no authority here” became a meme.

The now-famous Ms Weaver is no longer acting as clerk.

The meeting on 10 December 2020 was the second time chair Brian Tolver had been removed, having previously been evicted from the earlier 7pm Planning and Environment Committee.

The 7.30pm extraordinary meeting began with an unseen councillor mumbling “f*** off” under their breath.

Mr Tolver refused to recognise the legitimacy of both meetings.

He told meeting clerk Jackie Weaver, from the Cheshire Association of Local Councils, to “stop talking” and “you have no authority here”.

In response, Jackie Weaver placed him in a virtual waiting room.

The reports made no formal findings as they did not reach the committee stage of the process after three councillors being investigated all resigned.

The former councillors said that they did not accept the findings of the investigations and said, in a statement issued on their behalf, they "do not recognise any of them as being valid".

"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," they said.

"We did not, at any time, breach the code of conduct and now plan to fully contest these findings."

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