| Vic Ross said the council’s education department had copied articles without permission from a website he runs that seeks to chart, from the couple’s point of view, events leading up to Mrs Ross’ suspension.
He told the Tele today he is now taking legal advice and looking at the possibility of raising an action against the local authority.
At issue, he says, is a letter sent by the council to his wife. Alongside the covering letter were photocopies or prints of some of the articles he has written for his website www.lindaross.co.uk.
He said of the legal action, “It’s in the pipeline. They copied the articles and sent them to Linda.
“They should have asked me for permission to copy the articles.
“Material that is written for websites is protected by copyright in the same way as other media.”
Mr Ross said the articles sent to his wife had sections highlighted by the council. These appeared to refer to matters the council “did not like”.
And he revealed software on his website that is used to track the origins of visitors had shown the city council was taking a close interest in it.
“I know the council is on my website all the time,” he said. “They are frequent visitors and probably account for a lot of the ‘hits’ the site gets. They are on the website every day wondering what I’m up to.”
Meanwhile, Mr Ross said he and his wife were playing a “waiting game” with regard to her future following a disciplinary hearing held yesterday in his wife’s absence and behind closed doors by the education department.
The council has so far refused to say what went on at the meeting and Mr Ross said his wife had not yet been informed of the outcome.
He said, “I can’t make head nor tail of it: they seem to be keeping the results of what happened to themselves.
“They just seem to be trying to stretch matters out. I would hope they would have the decency to get in touch but we are going to leave things to see what happens.”
Mrs Ross failed to turn up for her disciplinary hearing yesterday but it went ahead anyway with the city council refusing to accept that she was unfit to attend.
The council’s position is that she has been declared fit to attend meetings by the independent Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Services.
Another hearing to investigate the website also took place last week without Mrs Ross being present.
Mr Ross said he still couldn’t believe that the council had gone ahead with yesterday’s meeting without his wife being there.
He added, “The main person is Linda and she wasn’t there because she is under doctor’s orders. She’s not fit to attend the meeting unless she is represented and the council won’t let me or a solicitor be with her.
“Linda is no longer in the EIS (teachers’ union) but their representative is Eric Baillie who is employed by the council.
“The EIS decided, because Linda wouldn’t sign a case-handling protocol document that would have entailed not speaking to the Press, not to represent her.
“The council will only allow a union representative or a fellow staff member, such as a teacher, to be present with her.”
Mrs Ross was previously suspended from her post as deputy head of Sidlaw View Primary after her husband made public allegations of violence and threats by pupils and parents.
A disciplinary hearing in February concluded Mrs Ross would not return to the school but would stay employed by the education department at her present level of seniority.
In June, she was suspended from her new school, Longhaugh Primary, and her husband made the subject of an interdict preventing him from contacting the head teacher Gerard Munro.
A spokesman for Dundee City Council said they had no comment to make. |
