“Disabled children should be put down” councillor re-elected

I wonder what went through Colin Brewer’s mind as he stood on the podium after being re-elected as a County Councillor last Thursday.

Brewer – who resigned after saying disabled children “cost the council too much money and should be put down” – won the Wadebridge East ward as an independent candidate with a majority of just four votes in the local elections. The 68-year-old said he was asked to stand again by people in his ward.

And an e-petition calling for a second resignation has already attracted more than 1,100 signatures.

The petition says Mr Brewer “does not deserve to be in a position of power for his disgusting comments about disabled children.”

It wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, either, which is what makes his re-elction so incredible. Greeted by a mixture of boos and cheers, with heckles such as “shameful” and “you are a disgrace”, he said on his re-election: “I resigned because of unbearable media pressure. The people in Wadebridge wanted me to stand again and I’m proud to represent them.

“I said they should be put down. I was just hot under the collar, I suppose, coming from a council meeting where we had been talking about budget cuts and staff cuts.

“Sometimes people can just catch you on the wrong day.”

He must have had a pretty horrendous day to feel the need to bark out something as revolting as that – and it wasn’t just to a random person in a cobbled Cornwall street, either. He made the comments to a Disability Cornwall member at a stall at County Hall in Truro in 2011, to “provoke debate.” He then wrote a letter to Theresa Court, the Disability Cornwall stall member, saying: “I have no intention of resigning. I don’t think I have done anything wrong.”

His re-election has infuriated people across the country. Disability Cornwall chairman Steve Paget said he was “staggered” and “appalled” at Mr Brewer’s re-election. He said: “I’m just confused that anyone who advocated putting disabled children down in any context could be re-elected as a public figure in Cornwall.”

In a statement, the organisation said many members were “deeply saddened” and that they “worry what this could mean for us all, with such discriminatory views held by the ‘leaders’ of our county.”

Despite anger on social networking sites, letters to Brewer claiming his comments outweigh any good he has done for the community, and the online petition calling for his second resignation: those living in Wadebridge East will be represented by this man for the next four years. Glad I don’t live there.