THE wife of the county's top firefighter has made a formal complaint to Brentwood Borough Council about the "disgraceful, offensive and disrespectful" behaviour of one of its members.
Elizabeth Johnson, the spouse of David Johnson, the chief fire officer of Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, said the "highly personalised campaign of harassment" being carried out against her and her husband by Hutton North borough councillor Russell Quirk had left her "deeply distressed".
She took exception to the Tory councillor claiming that she and her husband had moved house because of "matrimonial difficulties" and has also threatened to make a formal complaint of harassment about Mr Quirk to Essex Police.
Mr Johnson has complained about Mr Quirk too, accusing the councillor of attacking his professionalism and integrity and making "wholly inaccurate, offensive and defamatory" statements about his private life.
The fire chief describes Mr Quirk's conduct as "falling far below the standard required" by the borough council's code of conduct, suggesting he failed to treat him with respect and he had brought the council into disrepute.
Mrs Johnson, who gave her address as Buxhall, near Stowmarket, in Suffolk, lodged her complaint in July 2011 and her husband complained three months later, although details of the allegations only emerged for the first time this week ahead of a scheduled hearing into Mr Quirk's conduct.
The couple's complaints relate to comments made by Mr Quirk during a broadcast on Brentwood's community radio station Phoenix FM on July 1, 2011.
He had been a guest on a show called the Soap Box hosted by Chris Hossack, who is also a Tory councillor in Brentwood.
A separate complaint from Mr Johnson about the show to the broadcast regulator Ofcom was upheld in January this year.
Mr Quirk has been critical of Essex County Fire and Rescue Service since January 2011, when it decided to axe one of Brentwood Fire Station's full-time crews and replace it with a part-time, retained crew.
Mr Quirk believes this will "downgrade" fire cover in the town and "put lives at risk," an allegation which the fire service strenuously denies.
Following the complaints, the borough council's monitoring officer, Steve Boyle, asked Tim Ryder, the monitoring officer at Suffolk County Council, to investigate. In his report published this week, Mr Ryder concludes that Mr Quirk failed to treat Mrs Johnson with respect and so breached the borough council's code of conduct.
He did not, however, find that the councillor had brought his office into disrepute in respect of Mrs Johnson's complaint.
In respect of Mr Johnson's complaints, Mr Ryder also found that Mr Quirk had breached the council's code of conduct by failing to treat the firefighter with respect.
Once again, he did not find that the Tory's behaviour had brought the authority into disrepute, although he did find that Mr Quirk had been "deceitful" about Mr Johnson and the fire service.
The council had been due to discuss Mr Ryder's findings at a meeting of its standards consideration and hearing sub-committee on Friday, although the hearing has now been postponed.
Mr Quirk said in a statement: "Those that believe such pressure may serve to silence me are very much mistaken."
