THE man set to become Slough Borough Council’s new chief executive has been accused of swearing, inappropriate behaviour and being ‘physically aggressive’ in relation to colleagues.

Deputy leader, Cllr Sabia Hussain, unleashed a string of allegations about Roger Parkin at an appointments sub-committee meeting on Monday night. The meeting, which was heard in public, was called after Cllr Hussain formally objected to Mr Parkin’s selection as the new chief.

But her allegations were rejected by council leader, Cllr Sohail Munawar, with the committee deciding Mr Parkin should still go forward as the preferred choice.

Cllr Hussain said: “He called the Labour Party chief whip (Cllr Haqeeq Dar) ‘a f******’, then pretended he did not say this, but then later apologised. What members will not know is that in the presence of the leader, myself, and external parties he referred to another elected member, the ex-deputy Leader (Cllr James Swindlehurst) as ‘a fat f***’ no less!

“The Council’s former head of legal (Amardip Healy) and former monitoring officer (Gurpreet Anand), both of whom reported to Roger, both raised grievances against Roger. We cannot just ignore that.

“There are serious allegations of bullying against your appointee. Yet none to date have been investigated.”

Furthermore, Cllr Hussain also alleged that Mr Parkin had referred to a senior member of council staff as a ‘little s***’ and then put the insult in writing to junior members of staff. She also claimed that at a meeting of the Wellbeing board, Mr Parkin had referred to overweight people as “lazy couch potatoes who need to get off their backsides”.

As part of her submission, Cllr Hussain also claimed: “It is documented that he was abusive and physically aggressive to the former chief executive (Ruth Bagley), and was subsequently referred for anger management.

“He has conducted himself in a manner that falls short of expectations, watching football on his phone during cabinet and other meetings as recently as a few weeks ago.”

While the council deliberated over Cllr Hussain’s allegations in private, a member of the Appointment Sub-Committee panel, Conservative leader Wayne Strutton, left the meeting early. Speaking outside the meeting, Cllr Strutton said: “I will not be party to an organisation that supports bullying. I’m not taking part in something that was obviously pre-determined, in my view. Better to withdraw than be a part of it.”

Cllr Hussain added that she was aware of external parties that intend to obtain a High Court injunction to prevent the appointment of Mr Parkin.

At the conclusion of the meeting, the leader of the council and chairman of the appointments sub-committee, Cllr Sohail Munawar, dismissed the allegations against Mr Parkin.

Cllr Munawar said that the allegations about poor professional conduct could not be substantiated, and denied that Mr Parkin had ever been referred to anger management, saying that “there was no record of this on his personal file.” Cllr Munawar mentioned, however, that a condition of his appointment would relate to improved behaviour.

Mr Parkin did not feel it would be appropriate to comment at this time.