Stuart Ball is the Reform candidate for the forthcoming Mendip Ward council election.
He’s an ex police officer.
However, becoming a councillor wasn’t a conscious career change choice on his part. He was dismissed from the police force on account of his wildly inappropriate behaviour.
The impropriety consisted of a “misuse of his position”, which is especially concerning for someone who claims they want to be a public servant.
The story itself is almost comically strange, if this wasn’t a person who was standing for a position of power anyway. PC Ball found an actual ball in a shop that the assistant rightfully told him wasn’t for sale so PC Ball the assistant of an imaginary crime.
…his son had found a basketball while the family was shopping in a Sports Direct in August 2018, which staff said was lost property and not for sale.
The panel heard that Mr Ball claimed “finder’s rights”, ordered a shop assistant to the police station, and got into a “heated” exchange with the shop manager who asked him to leave.
The manager took the ball to Wells Police Station the following day and complained about Mr Ball’s behaviour, whereupon Mr Ball accused the manager of theft and threatening violence.
A statement from the chair of the misconduct panel that investigated the issue said:
This was a ridiculous and disproportionate spat over an item of trivial value.
“PC X’s demonstrable behaviour in the shop was bullying, disrespectful and a wholly disproportionate and inappropriate misuse of his position of authority as a police officer.
The allegation against PC X is that he dishonestly tried to criminalise people for offences he knew had not been committed in order to excuse his own behaviour — just about the most serious thing an officer of the law can be accused of.
We find it astonishing that PC X can still say that he does not believe he has done anything wrong. He truly lost his moral compass.