Edinburgh Council taken to court to release papers linked to whistleblower case

It comes as figures released under freedom of information laws reveal the authority spent more than £240,000 on beancounter probes in a year.

In a stinging rebuke, one councillor slammed her own body’s decade-long hounding of community education officer John Travers and called for transparency.

“In no uncertain terms, I am appalled at the inhumane treatment of my constituents and their family over a period of years,” said Cllr Alison Dickie.

“As a councillor, I operate in an open and transparent way, and have always fought for the council to behave in the same way.”

Documents obtained by the Evening News revealed the council forked out £241,504 on “professional investigation services” by PWC in 2016.

Council bosses are being taken to court to force them to release a hushed-up report by the same firm into fraud allegations and dirty tricks.

Officials for the authority refused to confirm or deny whether the £241,504 handed to PWC related to the report into the Travers case.

“As a new councillor in 2017, I had to get quickly up to speed on the case, and it soon became evident that something was very, very wrong,” said Cllr Dickie.

“For over 18 months now, I have been raising serious questions within council, with the aim of securing a just and satisfactory resolution for my constituents and the council, particularly around the PWC report, and to be reassured that the events and culture of the past will never be repeated in the future.

“Unfortunately, I remain in need of both that resolution and reassurance.

“This is a complex case and whilst I obviously have to observe official guidance for councillors, I will continue to fight for a fair and just outcome both in private and in public.”

The Evening News reported in December how Mr Travers served a writ on City Chambers to publish the PWC report into his claims £400,000 of public funds had been misspent at an arm’s-length firm.

Mr Travers and others close to him were the victims of a ten-year campaign of intimidation after he made the claims.

This included tampering with personnel records, hate mail, a barrage of "weaponised" pornography being sent to Mr Travers and his associates and anonymous online abuse.

The city council drafted in a team of specialist investigators from accountancy giant PWC to examine the claims in 2016.

Their report vindicated the actions taken by Mr Travers and is understood to have concluded both he and his associates were harassed – but was unable to establish those responsible.

It also tracked vile hardcore pornographic images back to a council via an IP address but no individual has ever been identified as responsible.

As a result of their findings, the city council’s chief executive issued a full apology to Mr Travers for the “completely unacceptable” way he was treated.

While the PWC investigators did not find evidence of fraud, they also did not rule it out.

Mr Travers’ allegations related to Edinburgh Lifelong Learning Partnership (ELLP) and work carried out on City Connect, its IT and social inclusion project.

In late 2002, he sent a series of anonymous e-mails around the council, including to then city leader Donald Anderson, alleging mismanagement in ELLP and City Connect.

Raising the allegations led to a disciplinary hearing against Mr Travers, but he later won £5,000 compensation after an employment tribunal ruled that the council had failed in its duty to protect him.

It said there had been “sufficient straws in the wind” to lead Mr Travers to believe “that all was not as it should be”.

The ELLP case has also been linked to a botched building project at Cameron House Community Centre.

The Prestonfield hub became mired in allegations of doctored emails, missing documents and the wasting of more than £146,000 of public money.

A City of Edinburgh Council spokesman said: “The council does not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.”