EXCLUSIVE: Hartlepool Council Accused of 'Media Manipulation' Over Children’s Services Appointment
- teessidetoday
- Oct 13
- 3 min read
Leadership of Teessides most dysfunctional institution 'in Full Damage Control Mode', After Member of the Public Exposes New Children's Services Directors Mysterious Employment Trail, only for the article to mysteriously disappear...
14th October 2025
The scandal surrounding Hartlepool Borough Council’s appointment of a Children's Services Director seems to be intensifying, following claims Hartlepool Borough Council may be going to extraordinary 'authoritarian' lengths to control the narrative.
According to multiple online accounts, Hartlepool Borough Council (HBC) was caught in apparent panic mode late on Sunday afternoon, after a member of the public questioned HBC's new director of Children's Services Alison Sutherland’s background under a post shared by a local left wing extremist newspaper.
In response, Labour's newly appointed Council Leader Pamela Hargreaves fired back defensively — claiming Sutherland had “previously never worked for Stockton Borough Council.” But within hours, the facts told a very different story.
Evidence Emerges — Then Quickly Disappears
Official documentation, including Stockton Borough Council’s own press release and a Teesside Gazette article both published in November 2024, confirmed Ms Sutherland was appointed as the Director of Children’s Services for Stockton.
In that same press release, Sutherland was even quoted saying she “felt an immediate affinity with the area” and was eager to make the borough “outstanding and excellent in every sense of the word.”
Those public statements directly contradicted Labour Council Leader Pamela Hargreaves’ confident claim that Sutherland had, as she'd claimed “never worked for Stockton Borough Council.”
Yet, it's claimed within hours of this contradiction going viral on social media, something strange happened.
Hartlepool Borough Council issued its own response, arguing the member of the public was spreading, what they described in their words as 'misinformation', with HBC doubling down, claiming Sutherland never actually took up the Stockton Borough Council role despite it being heavily covered in local press — leaving for what Hartlepool Borough Council described as "personal reasons.”
Then, in a move that's only intensified suspicion of a cover up, those comments then later mysteriously vanished from the local newspaper’s Facebook thread about an hour after they were made...
Sunday Spin?
Even more curiously, its claimed multiple sources have alleged Hartlepool Borough Council tried to contact Stockton Borough Council on Sunday afternoon — the same day the controversy erupted — to request the removal of Stockton Councils original press release.
If true, that would mean one council effectively pressured another to delete a verified public record that contradicted Hartlepool’s official line.
That raises a very serious question: why would any council spend its weekend making phone calls to another authority to erase a story — unless they were caught out and desperate to contain the fallout?
A £130,000 Question
The Director of Children’s Services role that Ms Sutherland has now assumed at Hartlepool was officially advertised earlier this year on North East Jobs.
With such a substantial taxpayer-funded salary on offer, transparency should have been paramount. Instead, what residents have witnessed this weekend is a series of conflicting statements, sudden deletions, and now what seems to be apparent interference with press archives in a bid to seemingly re-write history.
Manipulating the Message
This developing saga now raises serious concerns over Hartlepool Borough Council’s apparent 'Extremist' & Authoritarian relationship with the local media. If the council really did intervene to attempt to influence or suppress information published by another local council, it would represent a disturbing example of political manipulation of public information.
Local residents have been quick to accuse the Labour-led council of “running scared” and “trying to rewrite history” after the facts didn’t fit their public narrative.
As one observer summed it up bluntly:
“If they’ll go this far to hide a job title, what else are they hiding from the people of Hartlepool?”
Alison Sutherland appointment to HBC's Children’s Services come after the snap resignation of Sally Robinson, a senior HBC Figure who should have been sacked in 2019 after a Discretionary Housing Payments blunder reportedly seen up to 70 applicants losing out on vital support, some of which were left homeless due to the senior officials blunder.
With HBC's Children's Services already under intense scrutiny, following repeated Ofsted concerns and leadership instability, the last thing Hartlepool needed was another public credibility crisis & comes just months before locals head to the poll's in May's local council elections.
Instead, what residents are now seeing looks increasingly like a cover-up — or at the very least..... a clumsy attempt at spin control.
