Jerome slams Hartwig’s rebuke of Dodt’s cartoon as hypocritical

‘Defamed in every possible way”: former mayoral candidate Tim Jerome said he endured constant defamatory attacks from the Mayor’s followers when he ran for Mayor

WAR OF WORDS: Former mayoral candidate Tim Jerome has struck out at Gympie Mayor Glen Hartwig calling him a hypocrite over his reaction to comments made about him on Facebook.

A letter to the editor from former Mayoral candidate Tim Jerome:

I FIND it hypocritical that Mayor Hartwig can call former Councillor Daryl Dodt’s comments disgraceful and defamatory and that people should be able to know the difference between what is discussion and what is disgraceful and defamatory.

I can speak from personal experience of being publicly spoken about by his followers during the Mayoral elections on the Facebook group “Gympie Regional Forum”.

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Tim Jerome

One of his followers stated that “my father should have been castrated before I was born”.

I was defamed in every possible way.

They even had the audacity to make disgraceful comments about my wife of which I have screen shots.

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Former Gympie councillor Darryl Dodt.

Part of an image posed on a page attributed to ex-Gympie councillor Dr Daryl Dodt criticising the council's repeal of environmental laws.

Democracy is a two-way street if people want to give it, then you have to be able to take it. There needs to be an apology from the leader of these people who use social media to defame and belittle other human beings.

Leadership is about honesty and integrity, something at this stage our leader has not got.

We could also go into honesty about being part of a political party and his political aspirations for the future- but that is for another time.

With great concern for our region,

Tim Jerome (former Gympie Regional Council Mayoral candidate)

Originally published as