No police action for South Somerset Council director Clare Pestell

A council officer accused of using public money on her private winery will not be prosecuted, police have said.

Former director of commercial and income generation at South Somerset District Council, Clare Pestell, was sacked in 2021 when a whistleblower came forward.

Avon and Somerset Police said the evidence provided in an independent investigation "did not meet the evidential threshold".

Ms Pestell denies the allegations.

In 2021, a confidential report by external investigator Richard Penn - seen by the BBC and the Somerset Local Democracy Reporting Service - ruled Ms Pestell's conduct amounted to gross misconduct.

Mr Penn concluded that Ms Pestell breached the council's code of conduct numerous times, identifying several occasions where she used council employees to carry out work at Melbury Vale Winery near Shaftesbury.

She failed to declare that council staff had been used on council time to build glamping pods, strim grass, lay turf outside her cottage and - on one occasion in February 2020 - remove a dead pig from her land, his report found.

Although the report was marked private and confidential, the BBC believed it was in the public interest to report on it.

The report was subsequently passed to the police, who have now concluded their investigation.

A police spokesman said: "Officers concluded that the evidence supplied by the disciplinary investigation - which they described as very thorough and comprehensive - did not meet the evidential threshold for charging a criminal offence.

"Officers have not identified any proportionate and reasonable lines of further enquiry which would provide additional evidence in order to reach this threshold.

"If anyone comes forward with new information which was not submitted to the independent investigation it will be assessed and the enquiry could be reopened."

South Somerset District Council thanked the police for its "diligent work on this matter".

Follow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: [email protected]