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Councillor is bankrupt

2:03pm Wednesday 14th March 2007

comment Comments (24)   Have your say »


A LIBERAL Democrat councillor has been expelled from the party and is at the centre of a police investigation.

Cllr Sera Kentman, who has represented Whitefoot ward in Lewisham since last May, was axed after breaching rules, which included failing to disclose her debts as a councillor.

News Shopper can reveal Ms Kentman is an undischarged bankrupt, who may have stood illegally at last May's elections.

Under Section 80 of the Local Goverment Act 1972, no-one can stand in an election as a councillor if they are an undischarged bankrupt.

According to Lewisham Council's Liberal Democrat leader Mark Morris other allegations involving Ms Kentman include:

  • A £9,000 overpayment of housing benefit on a house she part owns.
  • Outstanding council tax payments back dating over a year.
  • Her use of a number of different names. Ms Kentman was temporarily suspended three weeks ago from the party and given time to provide information on her debts and proof of her identity.

But on March 8, at the Civic Suite, Catford, she failed to provide the group with any evidence to clarify her status.

Mr Morris said: "We have given her time to come to meetings and provide us with information. She has not done anything.

"We have a rule book and she has breached it. We had no choice but to expel her from the group.

"She has been evasive to her own fellow councillors and is not fit to be a Liberal Democrat councillor or any other councillor of a political party."

A police spokesman said they were not able to comment on the nature of the allegations while enquiries are continuing.

Insolvency practitioner Keith Stevens, who dealt with the case, confirmed a Julia Kibris, one of the other names used by Cllr Kentman, was made bankrupt in 2004 and is still an undischarged bankrupt.

Usually when people declare themselves bankrupt they are automatically discharged from their debts after a year.

But Mr Stevens has confirmed this one year rule does not apply to Cllr Kentman because she has failed to comply with the conditions of a court order made in April 2004.

These conditions included meeting the official receiver's requests and giving income payments, which was agreed at the time of the order made by Croydon County Court.

The Individual Insolvency Register lists Sera Kentman and her alternative names, Julia Kibris, Hulya Kibris, Feliz Guner, and Hulya Guner.

Mr Stevens confirmed that a photograph he saw of Julia Kibris was the same as the photo listed under the name of Sera Kentman on Lewisham Council's website.

He said: "Based on the picture we've seen, we can confirm she's the same lady who stood for Lewisham Council unless she has an identical twin."

Cllr Kentman is now serving as an independent.

A council spokesman said: "We can confirm we referred Cllr Kentman to the Met Police some time ago.

"We are not able to give additional information while the investigation is ongoing, nor can we speculate on any action following the investigation."

News Shopper has been unable to contact Cllr Kentman.

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Robert Edwyn, London says...
2:43pm Thu 15 Mar 07

I had a run in with this councillor. She was rude, pushy and used her status as a councillor to try and scare me to do what she wanted. I think she has got what was coming to her, and i'm sure she made many enemies through her behaviour no doubt further contributing to her speedy downfall. I vote Lib Dem and will continue to vote Lib Dem, but i believe that Lewisham Council's vetting procedure should be reviewed to stop this very thing from happening again.

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Paul, Sydenham says...
5:38pm Thu 15 Mar 07

What worries me is the lack of judgement from the local lib dems. Surely they have a selection process. But maybe they were so desperate to enrole candidates they 'overlooked' the process. I voted Lib Dems at last years local elections but won't be doing that at the general election.

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Dave, Ex Blackheath says...
9:18pm Thu 15 Mar 07

Be reasonable, Paul! What were they to do? They are a voluntary organisation, just like the other political parties. How can a bunch of well-meaning amateurs be expected to spot a bankrupt who is using multiple aliases? I wouldn't know how to start checking up on that sort of thing - do you?

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Greg, Grove Park says...
1:38pm Fri 16 Mar 07

I think Dave has summed it up brilliantly: "a bunch of well-meaning amateurs". The Lib Dems are fine for a protest vote, but you wouldn't really want them running anything!

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John, Forest Hill says...
1:46pm Fri 16 Mar 07

I thought all the political parties were quite strict about vetting suitable candidates, these days. It makes you wonder what other skeletons the Lib Dems in Lewisham have in their cupboard. Perhaps we're lucky that we don't see our new Forest Hill councillors much anyway!

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Paul, Sydenham says...
1:56pm Sat 17 Mar 07

Thanksfully the Lib Dems didn't take control of the Council last May. What a complete bunch of amateurs. How many more Lib Dems in Lewisham are hiding secrets?

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Paul Griffiths, says...
3:25pm Sat 17 Mar 07

I notice that Greg ignored the rest of Dave's post, i.e. "just like the other political parties". Why should Lib Dems be held to a higher standard than the rest?

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Matthew Huntbach, Eltham says...
10:37pm Sat 17 Mar 07

The Labour Party in Lewisham has lost several councillors in recent years due to personal scandals. All political parties are suffering from the fact that it's hard to find enough people willing to put in the effort to become councillors. It would be nice if there were hundreds of volunteers, so we could pick and choose carefully, but reality is we're often having to persuade enough people to stand to fill all the places. Sera Kentman appeard to give a credible account of herself and her reason for wanting to be a LibDem councillor when she first stood. Now it's learnt she was not all she made out to be, the Liberal Democrats have acted quickly to expel her from the party. That's the best that could be done. If people want to see better poliotics, instead of moaning about what others are doing, they should try and take part themselves.

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Paul, sydenham says...
11:56am Sun 18 Mar 07

Hi Matthew.
I have lived in the area for many years and have forgotten which Labour councillors have resigned to fraud/scandal. Could you please give me some details.
Many thanks

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Laura, New Cross says...
2:52pm Sun 18 Mar 07

It is a scandal that the Lib Dem Councillor has not resigned. She has defrauded the Council and yet is probably still being paid expenses by them. What also worries me is that Lib Dem Group has such low standards when picking candidates for Council that they have to "persuade people to stand to fill the places." Not much of a gene pool for Lib dem talent then...

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Greg, Grove Park says...
6:38pm Sun 18 Mar 07

"Sera Kentman appeard to give a credible account of herself". I like that!

Effectively - 'Vote for us, we're easily fooled'.

A lot of floating voters (like myself) will need an awful lot of persuading if we're ever to vote Lib Dem again!

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Paul Griffiths, says...
9:55pm Sun 18 Mar 07

On second thoughts, it is perhaps something of a compliment that Paul, Greg and Laura believe that the Liberal Democrats should be held to a higher standard than Labour or the Conservatives.

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Matthew Huntbach, Eltham says...
12:06am Mon 19 Mar 07

Paul wrote:
Hi Matthew. I have lived in the area for many years and have forgotten which Labour councillors have resigned to fraud/scandal. Could you please give me some details. Many thanks
Well, there was Cllr Parmavir Singha, elected in 2002, who resigned in particularly unfortunate circumstances. Go back a few years more, and Cllr Dave Brown, then chair of housing, resigned after being found out fiddling his housing benefit.

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Matthew Huntbach, Eltham says...
12:30am Mon 19 Mar 07

Laura wrote:
It is a scandal that the Lib Dem Councillor has not resigned. She has defrauded the Council and yet is probably still being paid expenses by them. What also worries me is that Lib Dem Group has such low standards when picking candidates for Council that they have to \\\\\\\"persuade people to stand to fill the places.\\\\\\\" Not much of a gene pool for Lib dem talent then...
As I said, it's a problem all the political parties face. People these days just don't join political parties, though they are happy to moan about the few who do and at least make an effort to ensure that elections are contested. Being a councillor is a major commitment - I know, I did it for 12 years - it isn't easy to find people willing to make the sacrifices to family and career it involves. I don't think you will find that any of the political parties in Lewisham has hundreds of people wanting to be councillors. The Liberal Democrats have done a fantastic job in Lewisham in building up from almost nothing to a big group of councillors. This has involved taking on trust people who seemed keen, subscribed to liberal values, and were willing to put the work in. Mostly it's worked out well, there have been a range of councillors who got elected because they put the campaigning work in, and have done an excellent job once they've got elected. I'm sorry it didn't work out that way with Sera Kentman. But would you rather go back to the old days when in most of Lewisham Labour won all the seats without doing anything because there wasn't any campaigning at all from any other parties? As I've already said, they had a few bad apples as well, only in the bad old days of the Labour one-party state there wasn't always anyone to point that out.

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John, Forest Hill says...
1:35am Mon 19 Mar 07

Hi Matthew, you say that you used to be a councillor (a Lib Dem one, I guess?). What I find amazing is that you think the Lib DEm councillors we have in Lewisham now have done a "fantastic job" - but they don't seem to have achieved anything at all, and I'm sorry I voted for them last time.

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Matthew Huntbach, Eltham says...
10:37am Mon 19 Mar 07

John wrote:
Hi Matthew, you say that you used to be a councillor (a Lib Dem one, I guess?). What I find amazing is that you think the Lib DEm councillors we have in Lewisham now have done a \"fantastic job\" - but they don\'t seem to have achieved anything at all, and I\'m sorry I voted for them last time.
Yes, I moved out of the borough shortly before the last elections, so didn't stand again. I was a LibDem councillor for Downham ward from 1994-2006. Not an easy ward to represent, the only reason we got re-elected is that we worked at it, regular distribution of leaflets throughout the year telling people what we were doing, close attention to ward issues. During that time I lived in other wards in Lewisham, and never heard from my Labour councillors from the day they were elected until the next election.

When I was first elected, Downham ward was the only ward where there was much Liberal Democrat activity, and the Conservative Party had collapsed, leading to a virtual one party state. Since that time, the Liberal Democrats have built up and won councillors in quite a few wards. That's what I mean by a "fantastic achievement" - they have only done it by working harder than the others.

I haven't kept in touch since the last elections to know much about what the LibDem councillors have been doing since then. You say the LibDem councillors "don't seem to have achieved anything", but what actually do you think they could have achieved? Councillors don't have any special powers over the wards their elected to, and political control of Lewisham is still in the hands of the Labour Mayor and his cabinet.

I would hope that the LibDem councillors have been looking at the paperwork showing what the council has been doing, making constructive criticism of it, proposing alternatives, feeding back what they're doing to their wards, and doing the casework job of reporting any specific problems their constituents have to the council.

But one reason I wasn't particularly keen on standing again as a councillor, was that I found the Mayoral system meant I couldn't do an effective job. With all decisions being made by the mayor, rather than the old style committee system, I found as a councillor I was shut out of any meaningful role, I had no idea what the council was doing, I didn't have the information I used to get when it was run by representative committees.

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Bob, St Albans says...
7:41pm Tue 20 Mar 07

A brief out-of-area contribution. Our local council is currently run by the LibDems who seem to have two defining characteristics - a craving for affection and popularity, and an evangelical zeal to do good and please everyone - which of course is daft and impossible. Almost inevitably, they are hopeless at being decisive and consistent. They have managed to get into bed with a crafty property developer for a city-centre scheme to build a cinema on council-owned land, a straightforward plan which has morphed into a a huge enabling development for 500+ flats with mammoth underground car park. This all came about because after a lightweight voxpop consultation they think they're giving us what they think we said we want. We didn't and we don't. Charmingly and expensively naive - they'll probably get dumped for this at the May election.

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Mark, Lewisham says...
1:35pm Fri 23 Mar 07

I had dealings with Cllr Sera Kentman, through 2005 and all of 2006.

I do not want to go into too much detail, but to say that she was completely horrible.

I had reason not to trust her from day 1. I had suspected that she used many alias's, but could not be certain. At the time, the transaction, in which I was involved was particularly complicated. She, was right in the middle of it. I suspected something was wrong, all along, but as I said, I could not prove anything.

Despite us not trusting her, this did not stop her trying to make my and my colleagues lives a misery.

She constantly shouted and screamed at my staff and I. She accused me and my company of being corrupt and breaching certain rules, which I thought was rich, based on my suspicions of her.

She made many attempts to make formal complaints about my company to governing bodies. All to not avail, as we had been completely above board. Something she would not know about.

She even reported a theft against us, to the Police. When the Police investigated, they were able to confirm that a theft had never occurred. The officer I spoke to suggested that they were concerned that she had wasted Police time.

At the latter stages of our dealings, she tried to throw her weight around as a councillor.

At this point we reported her to the Mayor of Lewisham’s office and to the Liberal Democrats.

I am glad to see that she is under investigation. The reputation of the Liberal Democrats will certainly have damaged in the past months. I personally, have told everyone of my dealings with this woman and of my disgust of her entry into Liberal party.

At least, the Liberals have spotted their error, shouldn’t Lewisham Council clean up their act as well now?

Disgusted and pleased of Lewisham.

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Paul, says...
2:52pm Fri 23 Mar 07

The question still comes back to Lewisham Lib dems. Surely they need to re look at the way they select candidates. How many more Lib Dems are hiding things in the closet? I for one who voted for the lib Dems last May out of disgust with the Labour party, I'm afraid I shall once again go back at vote Labour as it seems that the local Lib Dems are not just as bad as Labour but a **** site worse. Shame on them.

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Juliana, Heathrow says...
7:09pm Wed 11 Apr 07

I happen to know that this person is renting a house near Reigate and since moving in at the end of January she has not paid rent to her landlord. She claims all sorts of benefits and was arrested by the police several weeks ago. The landlord is now suing her but the chances of getting his money back from her are zero. Meanwhile she sends her children to a private school, has changed the locks on the doors without the landlords permission and probably receives a fortune in benefits. Lewishem certainly know how to pick em!!!!

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D-S Choy, London says...
8:46am Tue 24 Apr 07

Regardless to the robustness of a vetting policy - there will always be someone who slips through the net. It is disappointing to note that some contributors on this site feel appropriate to hold the entire party to account for the conduct of one cllr. If LibDem having been made aware to history of Ms. Kentman and conspire to a cover up then the party should be blamed - that is not the case here. No doubt if the party had been aware of her history she would not have been selected. The party were transparent and honest of bring the matter to light and should be commanded for it. We don't condemn the entire barrel of apples based on one rotten apple - though attractive as it maybe! Judge the party based on their performance and effectiveness in serving the people of Lewisham not the disappointing behaviour to one of their ex-party member.

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paul josling, islington says...
10:02am Sat 16 Jun 07

The Liberal Democrat Party has somewhat lost its way. The original and continuing Liberal Party is there to show such people where they are going wrong.In your borough they seem a right shifty lot. In Islington they lost there large majority by there inability to administrate. I wish them well and am sorry for the people they have caused justifiable grievance to.I hope they return to basics occasionally.
"LIBERAL VICTORY: SELF SACRICE, SERVICE!"
Your Liberal Friend.
Paul Josling.
London Liberals

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paul josling, islington says...
10:11am Sat 16 Jun 07

Paul Griffiths wrote:
I notice that Greg ignored the rest of Dave's post, i.e. "just like the other political parties". Why should Lib Dems be held to a higher standard than the rest?
Sir, The answer to Mr Griffiths question is Yes !
Paul Josling

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Feliz Guner, cyprus says...
2:13pm Tue 27 Nov 07

Sooo,Sera Kentman has been proven innocent of all the allegations.... what will all of you find to **** about now???

I am one of her supposed aliases ... but as far as I know ... she has never actually pretended to be me :-)

Just goes to show ... if you want to push someone out ... just make a load of unsubstantiated accusations .... after all ... no one is really interested in the truth ... and what fun to stab someone in the back in uncensored blogs:-)

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Comments are closed on this article.

Standing illegally? Cllr Sera Kentman Lib Dem leader Cllr Mark Morris

Standing illegally? Cllr Sera Kentman

Lib Dem leader Cllr Mark Morris



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