Abergavenny councillor cleared of harassing teenager at trial

BBC News

2 days ago

A councillor has been cleared of harassment but admonished over a relationship with a teenage girl, a court has heard.Kyle Edridge, who was elected as a Labour councillor for Abergavenny in 2022, was accused of sending unwanted messages via email and social media to the girl he described as his "little sister", and who he first met when she was 14.Following a three hour trial at Newport Magistrates' Court, a judge said there had been a lack of evidence and returned a not guilty verdict to the one charge of harassment without violence.However, addressing 28-year-old Mr Eldridge, Judge Sophie Toms warned him his messages to a younger girl while he was "well into his 20s", were "inappropriate".
Judge Toms said she listened to about 12 minutes of voice notes the councillor sent the girl in March 2024, when she was 17, after she had ended their friendship, and called them "manipulative".In one message, the Abergavenny town councillor said he had been "heartbroken" over their friendship ending and thinking about it while meeting Labour MPs and had to cry at a conference of school governors.Prosecutor Robert Reid told the court the girl, who cannot be named due to her age, said Mr Eldridge intended making a report to social services that she had been raped by a friend of hers.She said she did not understand why he had made the allegation and said she did not know the male, who had been accused, particularly well. Mr Eldridge told the trial he had become "confused" over their friendship after what he described as a "malicious joke" played by the girl. He said due to his autism and obsessive compulsive disorder he had taken the joke "literally", and felt he should report as a "safeguarding" concern.
Giving evidence, Mr Eldridge denied making a report to social services but said he had taken advice on a "safeguarding concern". He said he had been concerned the girl had been taken to a pub by men, aged 29 and 32, at night.In the voice note sent to the girl, after she had unblocked him on Instagram to send a message to say she did not want to continue their friendship, but would not ignore him if she saw him in public, Mr Eldridge said he was "really sorry" to receive the message.In the recording, played in court, Mr Eldridge said: "I'm genuinely brokenhearted and I can't express how much I'm sorry for the deep emotional trauma I put you through."He added: "In church I light a candle for you and when I was at a conference for school governors from all over Wales I took five minutes and burst into tears. "Tonight at a meeting with Labour Party members and MPs I just wanted to go to the toilets and have a big cry."
The judge said a handwritten note left for the teenager at her workplace, as well as incidents when he had approached her at work and when she was with friends, were not reflected in the charge, which referenced Instagram messages, voice notes and emails.She complained she was "missing all of the evidence" of contact between Mr Eldridge and the girl before January last year and there was no evidence from the complainant's mother who had also been mentioned by the prosecution and Mr Eldridge in his defence.In delivering her verdict, Judge Toms stated she had considered a psychological report, which said Mr Eldridge should be considered as having a disability, and had taken his characteristics into account.But she said she could not be sure he would know his conduct in leaving "one extremely rambling voice message" and another message, the girl had not listened, to amount to harassment.She said she believed the unwanted contact "could have been resolved by the way of a Police Information Notice" but said she understood Gwent Police no longer issue the notices which inform someone a named individual no longer wished to be contacted by them.
A prosecution request for a non-conviction restraining order, to prevent further contact, was also rejected by Judge Toms who said Mr Eldridge had not contacted the girl since April 2024.His defence solicitor, Derek Gooden, said police had warned him against contact, when he was arrested in September last year, adding: "He has seen her but he now crosses the road."Judge Toms said: "That must continue unless Mr Eldridge wishes to find himself before the court."Mr Eldridge was elected as a Labour member of Abergavenny Town Council, for the Park Ward, at the 2022 local elections but has sat as an independent since being suspended from the Labour group.