Council boss 'harassed' neighbours after hot tub row

A deputy council leader "intimidated" his neighbours after they called police to report he was "holding meetings from his hot tub" during the first Covid lockdown, a court heard.

Thomas Hollis, 28, deputy leader of Ashfield District Council in Nottinghamshire, is charged with two counts of harassment without violence.

Nottingham Magistrates' Court heard Mr Hollis also made a false complaint his neighbour threatened him with a knife.

Mr Hollis denies the charges.

The complainant, next-door neighbour Shannon Jones-Golding, told the court she had witnessed Mr Hollis meeting people in his garden while he was in his hot tub in May 2020.

She said she contacted police on 101 to see "if it was allowed".

The police confirmed Mr Hollis was a "key worker" and there was no breach during a visit to Windmill Close in Sutton-in-Ashfield.

Mrs Jones-Golding said Mr Hollis then confronted her and threatened to report her to police himself for "harassment of a key worker".

She then described a second incident two weeks later when Mr Hollis accused her and her husband Luke Golding of breaching Covid rules after they invited Luke's father into their back garden to fix a bicycle.

The court heard Mr Hollis was allegedly "up on a table over the fence with a camera".

The incident is said to have escalated after Mr Hollis called Mrs Golding-Jones' husband a "paedophile".

A 999 call - played in court - was made by Mr Hollis shortly after "screaming" that he was being threatened with a "one-and-a-half foot carving knife".

Police officers from the Taser unit went to the scene but were "satisfied" no such incident occurred after reviewing phone footage that Mrs Golding-Jones filmed during some of the confrontation, the court heard.

Mrs Golding-Jones accused Mr Hollis of "play acting".

Mr Golding was asked by prosecutor Mark Fielding to describe how he felt about being called a paedophile, and replied: "Trying to explain what a paedophile is to a six-year-old - it shouldn't happen. It really upset me."

The court also heard Mr Hollis sent "malicious emails" to the couple along with council-headed letters.

Asked about the impact of the incidents, Mrs Golding-Jones said: "It totally changed our lives as a family. I didn't feel like I could protect my children in that home."

The court heard that Mrs Golding-Jones had filmed Mr Hollis during the incidents and posted the exchanges on social media.

Defence barrister Errol Ballentyne, on behalf of Mr Hollis, said the couple were "motivated to get him out of office".

Speaking to Mrs Golding-Jones, he said: "I suggest you were out to make his life as miserable as possible by filming him and sharing it on social media.

"This was a vendetta against him … more political capital to get him voted out of office."

Mrs Golding-Jones denied this was the case and said she was "apolitical".

The trial continues.

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