An ombudsman investigation has determined that a former Conservative Welsh councillor made racist comments in an audio recording where he said that he felt all White men should have Black slaves.
According to BBC, the Ombudsman investigation identified the voice in the 16-second audio recording to be that of former Haverfordwest councillor Andrew Edwards. He resigned from the council in December 2024 after the alleged racist comments were made public.
And though Edwards initially described the audio recording as “deep fake,” Michelle Morris said “the investigation found, on balance, that it was the former member’s voice on the voice recording.”
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The individual in the recording is heard saying: “Nothing wrong with the skin colour at all. I think all white men should have a black man as a slave or black woman as a slave, you know. There’s nothing wrong with skin colour, it’s just that they’re lower class than us white people.”
Edwards ultimately made himself available to the ombudsman. During the investigation, Edwards claimed that an individual maliciously made up the audio recording with an algorithm that supposedly presented it as original, describing it as a “deep fake,” BBC reported.
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Edwards is said to have sent his partner the voice note on WhatsApp, and Morris said it was likely that the voice in the recording was Edwards’. “The content of the voice note was considered racist,” Morris wrote in the report.
Edwards did not deny providing his partner with information regarding council business on WhatsApp and also making negative comments about members of the public. He, however, claimed that he was “venting” to his partner because he was going through personal pressure.
But Morris stated that Edwards’ actions “could reasonably be considered as disreputable and was capable of seriously undermining public confidence in the council and the office of member.”
Morris has since passed the case to the Adjudication Panel for Wales, per BBC. The panel is an “independent tribunal” whose “function is to determine alleged breaches by elected and co-opted members of Welsh county, county borough and community councils, fire and national park authorities, against their authority’s statutory code of conduct.”
