Disgraced ex-DUP politician’s five-year ban in local government

Disgraced ex-DUP politician’s five-year ban in local government

29 May 2024

DISGRACED former DUP councillor Billy Walker has been disqualified from serving in local government for five years.

Walker (61), from Killyleagh, who was a member of Newry, Mourne and Down Council and a former chairman of Down Council, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and three years of probation last year after admitting two charges of attempted sexual communication with a child.

He had to sign the sex offenders register for five years.

The judge who sentenced Walker last June said: “There can be little doubt that the defendant was motivated by perverse sexual desires in engaging in what was deliberate sexual grooming.”

Northern Ireland’s Local Government and Standards Commissioner, Margaret Kelly, found that Walker had breached the councillors’ code of conduct.

Ms Kelly said Walker had brought the council and his position as a councillor into disrepute, and was not fit for public office.

His disqualification of serving as a councillor for five years is the maximum sanction available to the commissioner. 

Ms Kelly continued: “When interviewed as part of an investigation by the deputy commissioner, the former councillor acknowledged that he had not only let himself down, but also his colleagues within the council.”

Ms Kelly said it was “beyond doubt that a member of the public, knowing all of the relevant facts in this case, would reasonably consider that the former councillor’s conduct was such that it brought his position as a councillor into disrepute”.

Stating that Walker had shown “he was not fit for public office”, she believed it was appropriate to apply the maximum sanction available to her.