Leicestershire County Council worker resigned due to the way she was ‘treated and spoken to’ by Reform councillors

Lauren Haslam, a former monitoring officer at Leicestershire County Council, said a Facebook post made by Reform’s Councillor Joseph Boam left her feeling “upset” and “exposed [her] to the risk of significant reputational and professional damage” after he accused her of not being impartial.

A monitoring officer is a statutory senior officer in councils who oversees complaints, legality, ethical standards, and procedural fairness of a council’s decision-making.

Cllr Boam faces two conduct meetings later this week (Friday, October 30) following two separate investigations into his conduct, where councillors will decide whether he breached the members’ code of conduct.

In one of the incidents, Cllr Boam created a clip in which investigators say he selectively edited Mrs Haslam’s response to a question he asked at a meeting in November 2025.

Cllr Boam asked if she thought that a rise in complaints was “from far-left activists trying to cancel and silence Reform UK councillors”, to which she replied: “No, I wouldn’t agree with that statement, thank you”.

However, it was found that Cllr Boam chose to only publish the former officer’s initial three-second reply and deliberately omitted a further explanation that followed.

As a result, investigators found that the post led to her being accused of bias and of being a “nasty piece of work”, according to the comments that followed.

Mrs Haslam later asked Cllr Boam to remove the post, but he did not acknowledge or respond to the email, nor did he remove the post – leading her to lodge a formal complaint.

The complaint led to an independent investigation in which Cllr Boam “refused to engage with the investigation in any meaningful way” and called it a “ridiculous waste of taxpayer money”.

Mrs Haslam, who worked for the council for over 25 years, told investigators she “could not bear to view his Facebook post”.

She added: “I recall when I first looked at it, there were 70 comments, meaning that the misleading information was not trivial or limited in its impact.

“I knew there would be unfounded negative comments about me posted on it by members of the public. My husband kept it under review, but I asked him not to share the details with me because I found it too upsetting”.

She said that posts and comments made by Cllr Boam caused her “a lot of upset” and decided to leave her post due to the way she was “treated and spoken to by certain members of the minority administration”.

Mrs Haslam added that the incident involving Cllr Boam “contributed to [her] decision to resign employment with Leicestershire County Council and seek employment elsewhere”.

The investigators found that Cllr Boam breached the member’s code of conduct; however, he “completely rejected” that he had breached it and selectively edited the video.

Another Reform councillor was also forced to apologise to Mrs Haslam earlier this year.

Cllr Kim Robinson said he offered his “sincere and public apologies” to her following a complaint made.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), Cllr Boam said he believed he had not breached the code of conduct and had simply “clicked screen record” when he made the post.

He added: “There was no editing. She answered the question and it is just a question in a committee and she came back with a further answer just in a longer format.

“So in what world would I then edit that in her favour? That’s not for me to go and edit 20 seconds out to make her look better, which was her original answer”.

He also told investigators that he was showing a “legitimate, shared concern among colleagues about perceived bias in complaint processing”.

A Reform UK spokesperson said: “It would be inappropriate to comment on a matter that is still subject to a conduct panel, the Reform UK administration enjoys a positive and professional working relationship with Leicestershire County Council officers”.

Councillors will meet on Friday (October 30) to decide if Cllr Boam breached the code of conduct for the incident involving Mrs Haslam.

A separate investigation and complaint involving Cllr Boam, which was filed by Conservative councillor Ozzy O’Shea, will also be decided at the same hearing.