SNP council leader accused of printing out dossier about ousted election candidate
An SNP council leader has been accused of printing out a dossier about an ousted election candidate.
Falkirk's Cecil Meiklejohn is subject of a complaint that she misused council property to print out material about Toni Giugliano.
It emerged on Monday that Giugliano had been removed from the internal ballot to represent Falkirk West.
Meiklejohn's son-in-law Iain Sinclair was also standing in the selection.
A source said: 'It appeared that Mr Giugliano was the one person standing in the way of her son in law becoming the candidate for this seat."
Independent Falkirk councillor Brian McCabe made the complaint to the Ethical Standards Commissioner in October last year.
The Ethical Standards Commissioner confirmed that it had received the complaint but said it could not comment further.
The complaint - seen by the Record - alleged that Meiklejohn had printed off material about Giugliano on July 22 last year. This was less than three weeks after the general election - where Giugliano had been the Falkirk candidate.
The complaint showed screenshots which seemed to show that Meiklejohn had printed off material sent from her personal email with the subject matter "WM [Westminster] candidate Toni Giugliano".
It also showed screenshots of Giugliano's social media posts which had been sent from Meiklejohn's personal email and printed out.
McCabe's complaint said: "Councillor Cecil Meiklejohn, SNP Group leader, engaged in a continued and repeated grievance complaint against one of her SNP political colleagues, Toni Giugliano. That is a position she is quite entitled to hold.
'What she is NOT allowed to do is use Council printing equipment and stationery in support of this personal activity to prosecute her complaint against Mr Giugliano."
He added: " She has abused her position by using the very limited resources of the council for entirely personal reasons. That is undeniable and completely unacceptable."
The Councillors' Code of Conduct states that councillors are not to use council resources for anything other than council duties.
A Senior Falkirk SNP source said: 'Cecil has gone too far. She's purely thinking about her own interests but she doesn't realise the damage she's doing to Falkirk SNP.
"If she had any integrity she would step down as our Group Leader.'
Meiklejohn has been the leader of Falkirk Council since 2017.
Her son-in-law Sinclair and Giugliano were both running to replace former Health Secretary Michael Matheson as the MSP for Falkirk West next year - until Giugliano was removed from the ballot.
But SNP councillor Gary Bouse was announced as the candidate on Tuesday evening.
In October 2023 Giugliano's selection as the general election candidate for Falkirk reportedly caused a rift in the constituency group.
Complaints were made to SNP HQ that Giugliano had placed pressure on local members to support him, had breached spending limits and had fabricated an endorsement.
Giugliano rejected all the allegations and the complaint was thrown out following an investigation by then national secretary Lorna Finn.
He then won the race by 19 votes, but was beaten by Labour's Euan Stainbank at the general election.
A spokesperson for Cecil Meiklejohn said: "Any process involving the Ethical Standards Commissioner would be confidential, so it would not be appropriate to comment."
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