Bristol park group chair pays £15,000 to former councillor in apology for 'bully' and 'misogynist' accusations

Sian Ellis-Thomas, chair of the Friends of Redcatch Park, has made the payment to Gary Hopkins after claiming he was “a bully and a misogynist and habitually misled local people”.

Ellis-Thomas said she now accepts there was “no basis” for the statements, which were the subject of a formal complaint she made about Hopkins to the council last year. 

Hopkins had been a councillor for Knowle from 2002 until the local elections earlier this year, when he lost the ward to the Green Party after quitting the Lib Dems to form the Knowle Community Party in 2021.

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A pop-up notice on the Friends of Redcatch Park website says: "I, Sian Ellis-Thomas, offer an apology for my statements and actions towards Gary Hopkins, who at the time was a long-serving Cllr for the Knowle ward.

“I said that he was a bully and a misogynist and habitually misled local people. 

“I accept that there was no basis for these statements and wish to apologise to Mr Hopkins and anyone else that may have been misled or upset by my remarks which were publicly made. 

“As a mark of my regret, I have agreed to make a payment to him of £15,000."

The apology follows a previous apology made by Ellis-Thomas to Knowle campaigner David Wherrett last year.

This was over her “wrong and uncalled for” comments to Wherrett while he was protesting against proposals to make Redcatch Tennis Courts pay-to-play, which have since been implemented.