LABOUR councillors have been cleared of hacking their Conservative colleagues’ emails.

Harwich district councillor Garry Calver had called on Nick Turner, Tendring Council’s cabinet member for the environment, to resign after a leaked e-mail was found to suggest £3million sea defence funding in Holland-on-Sea should be pulled should the party fail to win a by-election.


Council leader Neil Stock explained to a council meeting that the “innocuous” comments were “flippant and clearly meant for a private audience”, but added that the e-mail had been “inappropriately and illegally” obtained, and he was concerned that someone on behalf of the Labour Party had “hacked” into their e-mails.


Mr Davidson has now written to Mr Calver to confirm an internal investigation carried out by the council’s internal audit manager has found no evidence to support an allegation of hacking.

Mr Calver has now called for an inquiry into how the email could have got into the public domain and whether Mr Stock has been asked to submit the evidence on which he based his allegation.
 

“The Labour group is pleased that the chief executive accepts the need for a transparent investigation resulting from the very serious allegations made by Mr Stock during the council meeting,” he said.


“We knew that the Labour group had played no part in any hacking of Conservative group e-mails, but it now appears that there is no evidence to suggest any such hacking occurred."

Mr Calver said the matter was far from over and called on Mr Stock to co-operate fully with any inquiry.


“The Labour group are typically being very childish,” said Mr Stock.


“Only they know how they managed to get the email. The email was sent to two Tendring Council email address so one of the other private email addresses may well have been hacked.


“If I have accused them of anything, it is of breaching the Data Protection Act by publishing the private e-mail addresses.


“Even if they didn’t realise they have done that, they should apologise.”