Coventry City Council's ethics committee has cleared its current and former leader of wrongdoing in relation to complaints by the owners of Coventry City FC about their conduct.
CCFC owners Sisu had complained to the council's ethics committee about the behaviour of council leader Ann Lucas and former leader Coun John Mutton and comments made by the pair during Ricoh Arena negotiations in 2012 and 2013.
The council commissioned Simon Goacher, partner at law firm Weightmans, to produce an independent report into the complaints.
He cleared the council of any breaches of their code of conduct, but the 32-page document was dismissed as a 'whitewash' by Sisu in a 26-page response. The response followed almost 200-pages of documents submitted as part of an original complaint.
That rejection resulted in the first ever hearing of the ethics panel which was chaired by Labour councillor Joseph Clifford and included Labour colleagues Coun Damian Gannon, Coun John McNicholas and Coun Linda Bigham as well as Tory member Coun Allan Andrews.
The committee was also supported by an independent person - Ken Sloan, chief operating officer at Warwick University.
The two-day hearing resumed today and the panel heard allegations that Coun Mutton had been "rude" and "aggressive" towards Sisu boss Joy Seppala during talks with the council about acquiring a 50 per cent stake in the Ricoh Arena operating firm ACL during 2012.
But report author Mr Goacher said the evidence was not there to back up those claims and questioned the timing of the complaint.
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He said: "If the behaviour was as bad as you now say it was, you wouldn't have waited three years to make a complaint about it."
But Sisu's lawyer, Fiona Lawrence of Mishcon De Reya, said the timing was "irrelevant".
Coun Mutton also dismissed the allegations, referring to one meeting where he and Ms Seppala had hugged and explained it wasn't a one off example of how they had communicated in the past.
The club owners also said the language used by Coun Mutton and Coun Lucas in public statements at the time had been inappropriate and defamatory.
Coun Mutton was quoted as saying "Sisu is a predator with greed running through its DNA" and had also admitted to chanting 'Sisu Out' at one match.
But Coun Mutton said the first comment was simply him repeating during a BBC radio interview what former Coventry North East MP Bob Ainsworth had said in parliament.
He added: "Yes I did join in the chant, it wasn't as a councillor, it certainly wasn't as leader of the council.
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"It was as someone who has supported the club since seven years of age and was a season ticket holder that had seen the club go downhill rapidly during that time."
Mr Goacher said Coun Mutton had been entitled to make the comments because "the law strives to achieve is a balance where people are allowed to express themselves in a way which allows robust discussion of matters in the public interest.
"Some of Coun Mutton's comments get close to the line, I don't think they cross it."
He added the comments could also be justified as they were personal beliefs rather than gratuitous and personal insults.
Responding to Sisu's lawyer, he said: "You don't accept it's true, but some council officers feel the strategy Sisu has adopted is one where it's trying to obtain a commercial advantage through Ricoh Arena which is not in the commercial interests of the council.
"It's a true expression of how he feels the commercial interactions have gone between the council and Sisu."
Sisu also questioned whether Coun Mutton had adequately declared his interests ahead of the talks due to the fact he was a trustee of the Alan Higgs Centre Trust, which had been born out of the Alan Edward Higgs Charity - the charity which owned 50 per cent of ACL at the time, along with Coventry City Council.
Mr Goacher said there had been a technical breach in relation to this, but the fact there was no financial interest attached meant this was a minor point.
Sisu also alleged that the council's move to sanction a £14.4million loan from the council to ACL had undermined negotiations over acquiring a share of ACL and the decision not been made objectively and had been fuelled by the council's dislike of Sisu.
But Mr Goacher said their actions appear to have only been driven by "the desire to protect their commercial interest in ACL".
Sisu also suggested the council had waged a "media war" against the football club's owners, pointing to email exchanges involving council officials and ACL's PR firm Weber Shandwick.
Those emails included suggestions of encouraging one member of the press in 2012 who was said to be eager to visit Ms Seppala at her home address in order to demand answers.
Other emails produced in day one of the hearing in November referred to former Coventry Telegraph editor Alun Thorne as "wanting the story first" and senior council officials having a "constructive and honest" discussion with him.
But Mr Goacher previously said: "When you follow the schedule (of emails) and what was actually said, it doesn't seem to have been replicated. There's no evidence of that. It isn't translated to press comments to support this is what was going on."
Today he added: "We've heard a lot about the press smear campaign which seems to be based on pieced together bits of information, none of which relates to these councillors. There's not even an inkling that they were involved, if such a campaign even existed."
Sisu had also complained Mr Goacher's investigation had not been through enough, but the committee found that "the investigator's report was sufficient for the purpose of establishing whether any breaches of the council's code of conduct had occurred."
Dismissing all elements of Sisu's complaint, Coun Joe Clifford said: "We find there's insufficient evidence to show Coun Mutton's behaviour was unacceptable.
"We have concluded that Coun Mutton did not fail to disclose his interests.
"We find there was no failure to make decisions in an objective and unbiased way.
"We do not consider that the comments made by either councillor amounted to a breach of the code of conduct.
"We have concluded there is no evidence that councillors instigated a public smear campaign against the complainants."