Why did the chief executive of Newcastle council allow his "best friend for the past 25 years" to continue writing letters to the local paper which contained obvious falsehoods?
It is one of the questions which lingers after a council-ordered investigation by consultants Pinnacle Integrity found there was "insufficient evidence" to substantiate allegations that CEO Jeremy Bath was the author of a series of letters to the Newcastle Herald by his friend Scott Neylon attacking the council's critics.
Mr Bath has repeatedly denied writing the letters or encouraging Mr Neylon to do so.
Many of those targeted by the letters have said the investigation, whose terms of reference remain a secret, was "severely limited" and its outcome inconclusive.
The investigators did not contact the Herald to see the letters, including the many which were not published.
As reported in the Herald since July, Mr Neylon's name, sometimes misspelled Neylan, has appeared on more than a dozen letters to the editor, eight of which were published.
These published letters date back to 2017 and contain numerous falsehoods, including that 48-year-old Mr Neylon is a grandfather and a pensioner, that he is a regular user of council pools, that he lives in Mayfield West, Mayfield, Dudley or Stockton, that his last name is Neylan, and that he is a Newcastle ratepayer.
As well as claiming to be a pensioner and grandfather, Mr Neylon has written that he has a teenage daughter.
In a letter on June 28 attacking council critic Sonia Hornery, Mr Neylon wrote of the city's pools: "I can only assume she's never visited one.They are cheap as chips and a bloody good day out for our grandkids. The staff are lovely, the water always clean and, for pensioners like us, just about the only all-day activity we can afford."
In a 2014 letter, written while Mr Bath was working as a public affairs manager for Hunter Water, Mr Neylon claimed to be a Hunter Water customer.
In none of his letters does Mr Bath's best friend reveal the truth that he has lived in Japan for the past 25 years.
Mr Bath's correspondence with Newcastle Herald reporter Donna Page over the past few months shows he is a close follower of the letters page and has known about his friend's letters.
"I've known Scott for maybe 25 years. And yes I'm aware of his letters. Not sure if I'm aware of all but I've seen maybe half a dozen in the Herald," Mr Bath wrote at one point.
Mr Neylon has written to Ms Page from Japan that "on a few occasions" Mr Bath has "suggested I give up the hobby" of penning letters to newspapers.
It is not clear why Mr Bath would suggest his friend give up.
Mr Neylon also told Ms Page: "At the end of the day, while I'm having a bit of fun, there's truth in every letter I've ever penned."
Mr Neylon's "bit of fun" might not have been so enjoyable for the people he targeted under a false identity, including Ms Hornery, Sharon Claydon, Tim Crakanthorp, John Church, Bob Cook, Ray Dinneen, Paul Scott, John Beach and Therese Doyle.
It stretches credulity to believe Mr Bath did not know his "close personal friend", the man who lived at his house when he was in Australia, was wading publicly into vexatious local issues with a series of lies about his identity.
Council chief executives, especially Mr Bath, have an open line of communication with journalists and editors at the Herald.
Did he have a duty of care to warn the community that the Herald was publishing fraudulent letters from his best friend on such contentious issues?
Mr Bath has told the Herald that he has been "completely upfront about my decades-long friendship with Scott Neylon, which shouldn't preclude him from having an opinion published in a newspaper".
This is true, but to allow a long-time friend to continue writing false letters to the paper is at the very least poor judgment from a person in his position.
