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A row on Facebook involving two deputies has led to a political crisis within Home Affairs, with four members of the Committee asking the States to sack the fifth member.
Deputy Victoria Oliver commented on a public post regarding police activity, where she is said to have criticised local Law Enforcement Officers' actions and also criticised the appointment of Deputy Marc Leadbeater as Vice President of the Committee for Home Affairs.
Deputy Leadbeater is involved with a business that is involved with growing medicinal cannabis, a fact which he has publicly confirmed numerous times.
Deputy Oliver commented on Facebook that Guernsey Police should not be "arresting people who have very small amounts when Vice President is Director of a whole blooming farm. It stinks no matter which way you look."
Pictured: Deputy Marc Leadbeater and his business associates are involved with The House of Green Ltd, which is waiting on license applications to start cultivating cannabis locally.
Following a number of discussions between Deputy Oliver, Deputy Leadbeater and their fellow committee members, she said that her comments had been misconstrued and although she regretted the upset caused, she did not consider her comments to be "unreasonable".
The other four members of the Home Affairs Committee disagreed and said it was "highly inappropriate" for a politician overseeing Law Enforcement to publicly criticise officers, and another politician.
As Deputy Oliver refused to publicly apologise and retract her comments, Deputy Mary Lowe; Home Affairs President, her Vice President Deputy Leadbeater, and committee members Deputy Jeremy Smithies and Deputy Paul Le Pelley have jointly written to the States asking for Deputy Oliver's position on Home Affairs to be terminated with immediate effect, at the earliest opportunity.
Pictured: Deputy Oliver's comments on Facebook included the above post. It has been removed along with others written by Deputy Oliver and Deputy Marc Leadbeater in response.
The remaining four members of Home Affairs have said they have no other choice but to ask for Deputy Oliver to be sacked, as the comments she posted publicly criticised the Law Enforcement Officers which the committee is responsible for.
The Statement issued by Deputies Lowe, Leadbeater, Smithies and Le Pelley is below:
"It is with deep regret that we are having to ask the States to remove Deputy Oliver from the Committee for Home Affairs. This is neither an outcome we wanted nor a decision the four of us have taken lightly. However, following public comments made by Deputy Oliver on social media last week, in which she stated that Law Enforcement should not have carried out a drug-related search warrant and was also highly critical of the Committee’s Vice-President, we felt we had no alternative but to take this course of action in the interests of the services for which we are responsible.
"After discussing this at length with Deputy Oliver on more than one occasion, we believe it is an untenable position to have a Committee Member who has publicly criticised the actions of police officers carrying out their duties, combined with a breakdown in the trust and relationship with a fellow member of the Committee caused by her public comments. Questioning the validity of police actions, without knowledge of the facts, undermines Law Enforcement and adversely affects the essential trust and confidence that is needed between the Committee and the services for which we are responsible. We are sorry that it has come to this but we felt we had no other choice."
Deputy Oliver has issued a statement in response which can be read HERE.
Pictured top: Deputies Victoria Oliver and Marc Leadbeater became embroiled in a public dispute on Facebook. Pictured next to Deputy Leadbeater is the Committee's President Deputy Mary Lowe.
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