Local Reform Deputy Accused of Misleading Councillors Over Poll Used to Defend £150,000 Security Patrols Near Asylum Site

A polling firm has distanced itself from a survey a senior Reform UK councillor used to defend private security patrols in Essex towns visited by asylum seekers living at the local Wethersfield base.

Cllr Russell Quirk, deputy leader of Reform-run Essex County Council (ECC), cited a Find Out Now poll when justifying Operation Vanguard, the county’s £150,000 trial of private patrols in Braintree, Chelmsford and Colchester. He was facing questions by Colchester City Council’s crime and disorder committee on 20 October.

However, Byline Times has now found the poll asked about police, not security guards, was commissioned through the councillor’s own PR company, and had barely half the participants he claimed.

The same meeting heard that Cllr Quirk was the one who initially suggested the firm that won the contract, My Local Bobby. It was then awarded the work without competition.

Since 14 September, six My Local Bobby guards in red vests have patrolled the three town and city centres from 10am to 6pm, seven days a week, in a three-month trial funded by up to £150,000 from council reserves.

Cllr Quirk told the committee the poll was “commissioned by the Essex County Council Reform Administration as councillors…It didn’t go through Essex County Council as such”. He claimed the survey was commissioned “further to our visit” to the Wethersfield asylum site on 28 August.

The council deputy leader said pollsters had surveyed 1,000 people who were “properly represented”, with “no loaded dice”. “We simply asked: are you concerned?” he claimed, adding there was “no contrived question”.

Over 80% were concerned, he said, and 88% answered yes to: “Would you like to see a greater security presence?”

He described the survey as a “backup to the reality” of “mountains” of social media disquiet.

But when asked for the questionnaire and sample criteria, he told councillors: “[On] certain things you’re just going to have to take our word for it.”

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What the Poll Actually Found

Byline Times then approached the pollster, Find Out Now. The pollster’s response came as something of a surprise.

The firm said just 562 people took part in the survey, well short of the 1,000 claimed, and that no weighting was applied, so the survey was “not fully representative”.

Fieldwork began on 25 August, three days before the visit which Cllr Quirk said prompted it, and closed on 11 September.

Respondents were not asked whether they wanted more security. They answered three yes/no questions:

1. “Are you concerned about hundreds of asylum seekers being bussed daily into Braintree, Colchester and Chelmsford from Wethersfield?” 69% said yes (not “over 80%” as Cllr Quirk told the meeting).
2. “Is there sufficient police presence in these town and city centres?” 81% said no.
3. “Would you like to see an increase in police presence?” 85% said yes.

The question Cllr Quirk described to councillors as being about a “greater security presence” actually asked about the police. My Local Bobby’s guards are not police officers and have no more powers than members of the public.

Find Out Now told this outlet the poll was run through ProperPR Ltd, a property PR firm. Cllr Quirk is a director and 63% shareholder, an interest which he has declared on his council registers. He declined to comment for this article.

Find Out Now’s founder and chief executive, Chris Holbrook, told Byline Times: “The survey was run as part of the ongoing retainer we have with ProperPR, a property industry PR firm owned and run by Russell Quirk.

“We were not aware that he was involved in politics, nor that this survey would be published or used for political purposes. Had we been aware, we would [have] followed our usual processes to ensure all published polling is methodologically robust.”

Byline Times understands the polling arrangement with Russell Quirk dates back around five years, before he was a councillor. His firm then traded as ‘Properganda’, with Find Out Now running frequent quick, low-cost surveys, mostly aimed at people working in property.

Requests are typically handled by a data analyst without review by senior staff. The Essex survey was left to run without anyone asking why a property PR client was posing political questions.

It is understood the firm regards the questions as unbalanced, accepts the survey should have been queried before it ran, and is reviewing its arrangement with ProperPR. The pollster doesn’t believe he set out to mislead.

Cllr Quirk was elected to Brentwood Borough Council for Reform UK in a by-election in October 2025, and to Essex County Council in May 2026, when he became deputy leader.

Operation Vanguard is ECC’s response to “concerns around the presence of people” from the Wethersfield asylum site. Since there is little evidence of heightened crime from the residents, Reform councillors have instead framed the patrols as an effort to reassure the public, particularly in response to fears on social media.

Some of those fears appear to have been encouraged by Reform itself. Ahead of the launch, The Telegraph published a story shared by local party figures headlined: “Reform council hires security guards to protect public from migrants.”

The Basildon Mayor, Reform councillor Sam Journet, mocked opposition councillors on 20 October for “feeling scared and invaded in Essex by Operation Vanguard,” saying: “A Reform UK Government will defend our borders by detaining and deporting ALL illegal migrants.”

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No Competition

Asked at the committee who first suggested My Local Bobby as the supplier, ECC director Ben Finlayson said: “That would be Councillor Quirk.” The contract was awarded directly to My Local Bobby on 4 September under a waiver of the council’s procurement rules.

An official contract notice records it as “below threshold – without competition”, worth £141,523.20 including VAT. The meeting heard that a Crown Commercial Service framework of 39 suppliers was not used. The only alternative tested was the council’s existing facilities provider, which could not mobilise in time.

My Local Bobby’s founder and majority owner, former Metropolitan Police detective chief inspector David McKelvey, said council officers approached the firm about two weeks before the patrols began, after first approaching at least one other provider. “Our ability to deploy rapidly was the reason My Local Bobby was selected. It was not the result of any political relationship or favour,” he said. He said he had never met Cllr Quirk before the contract.

On 17 September, just three days into the patrols, two Vanguard patrollers detained and handcuffed two teenage girls suspected of shoplifting in Colchester.

McKelvey said a shopping centre security officer asked the guards to detain them after reports of a theft. They used handcuffs for a walk of about 200 yards back to the shop because they believed the pair might escape. One girl was handcuffed to a guard rather than wrist to wrist because she said she had a previous wrist injury. He said the detention was lawful and proportionate, that nobody complained, and that the council was told immediately.

Essex Police said: “Neither girl was injured in the incident, which did require a police review, following which two offences of assault without injury were recorded.”

The force closed the case with “learning requirements being passed to the security staff employers”. No further criminal justice action is being taken against anyone. The outcome police used, known as Outcome 20, means further action falls to another agency, which the force says can include a referral to the Security Industry Authority (SIA).

A spokesperson for the SIA said: “We cannot confirm or deny whether we are investigating any individual or business. This is to protect the integrity of our processes and the rights of all parties involved.

“”Any regulatory decision from an offence recorded as ‘assault without injury’ would depend on the available facts and evidence, including the context of the incident and any police action.

“The SIA does not have powers to licence businesses directly but strictly regulates the individuals those businesses employ.”

Despite the police finding two offences, ECC nonetheless told the BBC that “no crime was committed by MLB operatives”. McKelvey says the council was notified on the day, and that the incident was later raised at a weekly meeting between the council and Essex Police.

Essex Police says incidents linked to Wethersfield “remain low, with the vast majority of these being isolated to the site”. Since June 2023, it says, there have been 15 reported offences across Essex in which a member of the public was the victim and the suspect was identified as, or alleged to be, a Wethersfield resident: six in Colchester, five in Chelmsford and three in Braintree.

Incidents at Wethersfield make up 0.57% of the 38,677 the force has attended in the Braintree district since the site opened. And ECC’s own launch report records the Home Office position that there is “no evidence of Wethersfield [base] having an impact on crime levels”.

At the committee, the chair of Colchester’s statutory Community Safety Partnership said there had been “no consultation at all” before the scheme launched. Cllr Quirk, however, said Essex Police “did not object” when it was put to them several days before launch. In September, the force told Byline Times the three centres “are safe places” with less crime than three years ago.

On 14 October, Colchester’s full council passed a motion critical of Operation Vanguard, calling for funding for council wardens instead. Wardens are directly employed and have more powers.

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Colchester Figures Respond

Commenting on Cllr Quirk’s survey, Cllr David King, the Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader of Colchester City Council, told Byline Times he was “disappointed that the information given to the committee was not correct.”

“We expect accuracy from any giving evidence to a committee, particularly on issues so divisive, to ensure any debate and conclusions drawn are soundly based.  The public expect this of us all,” Cllr King said.  

“The sample was smaller, unweighted, and said not be representative…Respondents were asked whether they would welcome additional police, rather than private security.”

While he welcomed “any investment from Essex County Council that helps us keep tackle ASB or crime and helps residents feel safe,” he added: “[We] know that this is best value and best done through consultation working with partners.”

“I repeat our offer: work with us, help us employ more wardens if you really want to help as they are much better value, have more powers and know the city better than any security operatives,” Cllr King said.

Fellow Lib Dem councillor Martin Goss, Colchester City Council’s cabinet member for neighbourhoods, told this outlet: “The whole premise behind Operation Vanguard seems to be a bit of a falsehood. It’s not something the people of Colchester have been asking for when we knock on their doors.”

Of the poll, he said: “You can ask somebody a question and get the answer you want, because you control the narrative.” He argued the questions were “totally biased,” and that Cllr Quirk’s presentation of the findings misled the committee.

“If I put forward a business case like that, it would get thrown out, because there is no business case.” Cllr Goss believes Essex County Council have been “ripped off” through the lack of a competitive tender.

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The Reform Link

At the 20 October meeting, questions were raised about My Local Bobby’s potential links to Reform UK. On 21 December 2024, McKelvey posted on LinkedIn that “the Reform Party had employed TM Eye to investigate and prepare a private criminal prosecution” over the Manchester Airport incident.

TM Eye is McKelvey’s private prosecution firm. Companies House lists TM Eye, which McKelvey wholly owns, as holding 75% or more of My Local Bobby’s shares. McKelvey says that is incorrect and that he owns 86% of the firm personally and TM Eye holds no shares. The former police officer says the companies are separate.

He now also says his social media post about working with Reform was wrong. “The wording of my earlier LinkedIn post was inaccurate insofar as it suggested that a formal instruction had been accepted,” he told Byline Times. Reform had made an enquiry, he said, but “the matter went no further”.

“Neither TM Eye Ltd nor My Local Bobby Ltd has ever been employed by Reform UK, received payment from Reform UK or received any financial or other benefit from Reform UK or any of its representatives,” he said. He added that TM Eye has also worked for the Labour Party, and that both firms operate “on a strictly non-political basis”.

On 15 October, Nigel Farage joined a Vanguard patrol in Chelmsford, telling the BBC the guards were doing “a fantastic job on our behalf”. McKelvey, who met Farage on the visit, had appeared on Farage’s GB News show in October 2023, before Farage became Reform leader, and on The Farage Show in December 2024 with Martin Daubney presenting.

McKelvey said he appears regularly across broadcasters, and that he has met Farage once, for about five minutes: “I have never met him personally before or since and have had no private communications or personal dealings with him.”

At the committee, Cllr Quirk made a number of inflammatory comments about asylum seekers. He said a couple of hours in a Wethersfield induction class “might not be enough to deter those with bad intentions from keeping their trousers on”. He said most of the site’s residents were “economic migrants that are coming here with their hand out”.

Leaving before the committee’s deliberations, he said he would watch the rest of the meeting “in the lounge with a whiskey”. The committee then voted 6–1 to ask ECC for the data justifying the scheme. Byline Times appears to have got there before them.

Maria Wilby of the Colchester refugee charity RAMA told the meeting that hate incidents had escalated since Vanguard was announced. She cited “white race will not be replaced” posters appearing at bus stops, hijabs being pulled off and people being spat at. ECC’s own equality impact assessment warned that asylum seekers could feel targeted and become “vulnerable to attacks from other members of the public”. The trial went ahead regardless.

Lorcan Whitehead, chair of Colchester Unite Against Racism, said: “Their strategy on Operation Vanguard seems to be to simply claim that they have evidence of [it being needed] while refusing to share it…It’s a dangerous, divisive policy, and the fact that there are question marks over how the contract was awarded makes it even worse.”

He added: “This is £150,000 of our money which could be spent on crumbling services that really need it.”

Cllr Quirk declined to comment. Reform UK did not respond. Essex County Council asked us to put a Freedom of Information request in instead, which would take at least 20 working days for a response.

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