QUESTIONS still need to be answered about the dismissal of a cemetery committee clerk after he was found to have falsified public documents, a Wimborne council meeting was told.

The former clerk of the Wimborne Cemetery joint management committee Anthony Sherman left the committee following a First Tier Freedom of Information tribunal in 2013.

It concluded that he had falsified committee meeting minutes, gave an untrue reference to the National Association of Memorial Masons (NAMM) and had also given false statements during the first tribunal hearing.

The tribunal was a result of a long running dispute over a complaint made to the Wimborne Cemetery joint management committee in 2011.

Wimborne-based stonemasons Minster Stone Memorials launched the complaint after a set of new regulations were implemented by the committee which they claimed “singled their company out”.

According to owners James and Lynn Case the regulations “imposed unfair restrictions” on Minster Stone Memorials access to the cemetery and introduced a new “rigorous inspection scheme which significantly hampered their business”.

The decision to impose the new regulations were made during a cemetery committee meeting following a letter accusing Minster Stone Memorials of sub-standard workmanship, failing to fit ground anchors and inappropriate methods of obtaining business.

As a result Mr and Mrs Case obtained a copy of the minutes of the meeting from the committee clerk Anthony Sherman.

The tribunal later agreed that the minutes given to the Case’s by Mr Sherman had been altered by Mr Sherman and that he had also provided a false reference about Minster Stone Memorials to NAMM.

A statement from the proceedings said: “Mr Sherman’s willingness to shade the truth in and concerning his dealings with the appellants is consistent with other, documented, parts of the events concerning the reference.

“When he “refute[d] completely” that he had given a damaging reference, in our view he was being knowingly misleading.

“We infer that he was exasperated with the appellants, and was more concerned with saying what he thought would cause them to stop troubling him than with being careful to convey the whole truth.”

Speaking to the Echo Mr and Mrs Case said: “Our success at the Tribunal Appeal Hearing confirmed the dishonest actions, including falsification of public documents, which were being used to support false allegations against us, in an apparent attempt to hamper our trade and ruin our reputation in Wimborne.

“The stress and anxiety of dealing with such abhorrent behaviour, whilst still trying to maintain our business, has been extremely difficult.”

At the last two town council meetings Wimborne resident Martin Tidd called for a meeting to explain what happened on the cemetery committee during the time of the dispute with the Cases as “many things remained unanswered”.

Following advice from solicitors’ town clerk Lawrence Hewitt said: “No comment can be made given that there are currently ongoing legal proceedings against a number of parties.

“It is not accepted that there has been any wrongdoing on the part of the town council.”