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Update

It seems that the council has been ordered by the fire officer to re-open the fire exit. It has been locked  since July 2011, with the council claiming that it had made sure that it was not in breach of fire regulations. That was clearly not the case, and as a result the council has put the safety of the public at risk in order to defend what it calls an "operational decision" to clamp down on anyone who might record what is said in public meetings.

Meanwhile the council can expect to hear from Mrs Williams and Cllr Thomas who are understandably very upset and angry to be branded as liars live, on air by the council's press office.

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Today's edition of the Jason Mohammad programme on Radio Wales featured a short piece on the extraordinary measures taken by Carmarthenshire County Council to make things as unpleasant as possible for members of the public wishing to exercise their democratic rights to observe council meetings.

Two members of the public, Mrs Lesley Williams and Mr Wyn Thomas, took part in the programme, and they described the process which everyone has to go through to get through the doors and into the public gallery. Both had particular concerns about public safety, as visitors to the public gallery are locked in and have to phone for assistance to be let out again. Moreover, as another member of the public recently discovered, the fire exit at the bottom of the stairs leading to the gallery is locked and bolted.

The council, notorious for its love of PR, was "unable" to take part in the programme, but issued a bizarre statement, accusing Mrs Williams, a retired school teacher, and Mr Thomas, a town councillor in Carmarthen, of being part of a campaign which was spreading lies about the council.

The statement went on to claim, completely falsely, that there is no "lock down", although it rather gave the game away when it revealed that members of the public had to use a telephone to get out.

On previous occasions, the council has also claimed that in the event of a fire, the doors would open automatically. While that may or may not be true in the case of the doors operated by a swipe card, it is certainly not true of the old-fashioned doors at the fire exit, which are locked with old-fashioned keys and old-fashioned bolts.

The statement also used security as one of the justifications for its policy, although it did not bother to produce any evidence of a security risk.

The truth is that the policy was introduced in response to an attempt by Caebrwyn to film part of a council meeting nearly two years ago. Prior to that the gallery was accessible to anyone who wanted to climb the stairs, and the council clearly did not consider the public to be a security risk.

Neither Mrs Williams nor Mr Thomas are part of any campaign, as far as I am aware, and both almost certainly have a case in law for defamation in the light of the claim, broadcast live to a large audience, that they are spreading lies against the council.

Listeners to Jason Mohammad's programme were surely shocked to hear a local authority behaving in this way, and the court of public opinion will have decided who was really lying here.

The programme will be available online for a further 7 days, and can be found here. The interview begins after approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes.