Neil McEvoy said the reaction of the presiding officer was “ridiculous”
An assembly member has defended his decision to secretly record hearings with the man who oversees complaints against politicians in Wales.
Neil McEvoy, an independent AM, accused standards commissioner Sir Roderick Evans of sexism, bias, corruption and presiding over a “locker room culture”.
Sir Roderick had been investigating Mr McEvoy on three counts, including the use of £5,000 for office building work.
Sir Roderick stepped down on Monday after the recordings came to light.
He said: “Much of what has been shared with the media has been taken out of context and is misleading.”
The Welsh Assembly has asked the police to investigate the secret recording but Mr McEvoy said the reaction of presiding officer Elin Jones was “ridiculous”.
She said the covert recording of private conversations on the assembly estate was a “serious breach of trust”.
Ms Jones said she understood recordings were made which included confidential evidence by a witness during a formal investigation into the conduct of an AM Neil McEvoy.
“It is particularly egregious that the covert recording was done by the assembly member under investigation,” she said.
Mr McEvoy recorded hearings with Sir Roderick Evans during the process of investigations into his conduct. They capture conversations held while Mr McEvoy was out of the room.
The AM told a press conference he decided to record Sir Roderick after the commissioner’s office gave him sound files of the hearings on request, where he heard comments made by the commissioner and the staff.
“There were some appalling things said about me on the official recordings,” he said. “It seemed to me they were all in it together to destroy my political career.”
Mr McEvoy said the hearings took place on the assembly estate, and there were hours of recordings taken on a mobile phone.
The phone could have been in a bag or a jacket, he said. He did not tell the commissioner or his staff they were recording.
He accused the commissioner of repeating “really sexist views” in the recordings “about female lawyers who of course because they’re female, they’re emotional”.
“They make a joke about women politicians,” he said. “They comment that Leanne Wood, in plenary, in their view, she should wind her neck in”.
Mr McEvoy said there was “obvious bias against some assembly members, not just me”, and claimed there were serious complaints about bullying not taken forward “because that particular AM was not in their sights”.
“There was a provocative and politically incorrect culture in the commissioner’s office that came across through the recordings,” he said.
Mr McEvoy claimed the complaints process had been politicised. He said he heard one complaint had been deemed baseless “but because of the political connotations between two political parties they would not dismiss it immediately”.
He said he had heard about a discussion about a battle between the Brexit Party and the Labour Party. Mr McEvoy accused Sir Roderick Evans of coaching a complainant against him.
He said there were “clear breaches of data protection” and said conclusions had been jumped to that Mr McEvoy untrustworthy.
“As far as I’m concerned the man was put up to do a job on me,” he said.
Mr McEvoy said his staff had been put under “constant pressure” for the past two years, and claimed sickness levels had increased.
Source of the news:BBC NEWS
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