Former chair of Stonewall and Labour MEP Michael Cashman has slammed the charity’s former chief executive Ben Summerskill after he posted a series of remarks on Twitter during the charity’s Equality Dinner.

Summerskill, who resigned from Stonewall last month, tweeted last week expressing his disappointment at not attending the Stonewall Equality Dinner in London.

Summerskill tweeted at Conservative MP Margot Jones suggesting that Stonewall’s acting chief executive Ruth Hunt insisted that he was not present at the event which marked the charity’s 25th anniversary.

He tweeted: “@margotjampesmp Nice to hear. Pity @ruth_hunt insistent I wasn’t there xx.”

During Stonewall’s dinner, Summerskill tweeted at a range of attendees about his predicament, including the sponsor of the dinner Aviva:

Summerskill also tweeted at Stonewall’s chair who is stepping down soon because her term is coming to an end.

He also tweeted after Davies put a bid in for an item at the event.

He said:"@kevinpoulter @stonewalluk Well done Jackie, good of you to put some money back into @stonewalluk xBen." 

Last month, shortly after announcing his resignation, Summerskill tweeted to Davies.

In reaction, the former chair and co-founder of Stonewall, Labour MEP Michael Cashman, slammed Summerskill’s behaviour. He told PinkNews that Summerskill's comments could harm the charity's reputation.

“My reaction to that, as someone who was chair of the board, is whatever happens within a board should remain within a board because by repeating something outside you can damage that organisation and damage the causes of that organisation [so you] should keep stum.”

He continued: “The politics of boards and the politics of people when they leave organisations can be quite unpleasant. She was a remarkable chair, and had a remarkable deputy, and should be judged on her time as chair of the board. My advice to Ben Summerskill would be that you are no longer the chief executive of Stonewall, you are no longer representing Stonewall…..get on with the rest of your life, have the courage to let things go.

“It’s difficult. I did that. The brilliance about letting things go is that they grow beyond your wildest dreams and thereby they pay tribute to you.”

Cashman also said that Summerskill should not feel upset about not having been invited to the Stonewall Equality Dinner, saying ex-senior staff had not been invited to the dinner during Summerskill’s tenure at the organisation.

“That is current practice, when you stand down you are separated from the organisation because the acting chief executive or the new chief executive needs to occupy the space – otherwise there is confusion about who is speaking for the organisation."

Cashman also told PinkNews that Summerskill should take a “deep breath, stand back and let the organisation get on with what it has set out to do, and if he doesn’t, Ben’s in danger of undermining the work that he’s put into Stonewall, which is part of where the organisation is now.”

He ended: “You can’t take back what’s been said but I think you should enter into a period of silence and reflection.”

Summerskill said the inferences drawn by PinkNews from the tweets were "a pile of rubbish" and that the tweets were "innocuous".

He admitted he thought it was "a little bit impolite" that he was not invited to the Equality Dinner just four weeks after leaving but insisted that his tweets were not disparaging about the charity or its personnel.  The tweet to Aviva was a joke, he said, and was taken as such by Aviva's brand director who called him later in the week to arrange dinner.

PinkNews has a "long history of a vendetta against Stonewall", Summerskill said, and he likened its news coverage to Perez Hilton's celebrity gossip blog.

PinkNews said it has no vendetta. In a statement it said: "Since he has departed the organisation, we can report that we are on extremely good terms with its acting chief executive and chair and look forward to working together with Stonewall on projects to benefit the community as a whole." 

Summerskill said he did not speak to PinkNews at all about its story.

In a statement, PinkNews said: "Ben Summerskill was contacted by multiple members of the PinkNews team throughout Friday and he did not have the courtesy of returning our calls. Instead, he went to Twitter to inaccurately and misleadingly claim that our story consisting primarily of his own tweets was 'made up'."

But Summerskill claimed it was "completely untrue" that PinkNews attempted to contact him.  The mobile number that PinkNews said it called was today going through to an unnamed voicemail.

Jacqueline Davies' term

Regarding Jacqueline Davies' impending departure, a Stonewall spokesman said: "Jacqueline has had a fantastic nine years on Stonewall’s board and, as with all trustees, is limited to how long she can serve. For that reason her term has now come to an end.

"The Equality Dinner is Stonewall’s most important fundraiser with the overwhelming majority of places being taken by individual supporters or organisations. No former chief executive was invited to the dinner as a guest of Stonewall."