Former mayor reprimanded over gavel threat

A town councillor accused of threatening to hit a colleague with a gavel has been issued with seven sanctions for behaviour at a disciplinary hearing.

Councillor Michael Glynn, former mayor of Hatfield Town Council, was reported to City of Doncaster Council for two separate incidents surrounding his conduct.

The hearing recommended Glynn be excluded from the town council's offices or premises with the exception of "prearranged meetings of the town council".

Attending the hearing earlier this month, Glynn denied the allegations and insisted he had done "nothing wrong".

Glynn was approached for comment by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The investigation was led by Neil Concannon, head of litigation and regulatory and deputy monitoring officer at City of Doncaster Council.

It looked into Glynn's conduct towards councillor Linda Curran in September 2025, when he was mayor and meeting chair.

Concannon's report included a transcript of an audio recording of the incident.

It quoted Glynn as saying: "Linda I'm not here to argue with you. I'm here to chair this [meeting] and I've read the…

"No, you're arguing again if I want to hit you with this gavel I will do somebody's gonna have to knock some sense into you…"

The transcript stated that Glynn then said Curran was "back chatting again", before banging the gavel and saying: "Silence, silence!"

Concannon said in his report that Glynn's words "amount to verbal abuse, shouting and potentially physical threats".

This did "cross the line" of what was acceptable for the chair controlling the meeting, he added, concluding that Glynn had breached the Councillors' Code of Conduct.

Glynn said the incident involving Curran had led him to resign as town mayor.

The audit hearings sub-committee, held in March, also received evidence of another complaint against Glynn.

It related to a Facebook post he shared in which he called a former town councillor a "vile human being".

Glynn's post was directed at Kenneth Knight, who was elected to Hatfield Town Council in May 2025, but, due to health concerns, did not take up the role.

As a result, a petition calling for a by-election, which included Knight as a signatory, was submitted, as is the democratic right of Hatfield residents.

In the Facebook post, Glynn accused Knight of attempting to bankrupt Hatfield Town Council.

Concannon told the hearing there was no evidence of this claim, which was "false and potentially libellous".

He added that Glynn could not have "honestly believed his allegations were truthful".

After a period of deliberation, the audit hearings sub-committee, chaired by Reform UK councillor Jason Charity, accepted Concannon's findings and conclusions.

It is the second disciplinary hearing Glynn has been subject to in the space of a year.

He was previously sanctioned by the committee on 16 March 2025 for making "misogynistic" remarks during a debate with female town council members.

He was also the subject of another hearing in 2019.

In his report, Concannon made note of the fact Glynn had not completed any of the sanctions made of him at either meeting, including written apologies and training courses.

As a result, councillors at the March 2026 committee issued Glynn with seven sanctions.

They included requirements to provide written apologies to Curran and Knight, and to attend a training course at the expense of Hatfield Town Council.

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