FORMER Ledbury town mayor, Bob Barnes, has been found to be in breath of the Code of Conduct for councillors, in a ruling by a Herefordshire Council standards board.

A standards complaint was made by Richard Hadley, a former Ledbury town councillor, over an allegation that Cllr Barnes had breached the members' Code of Conduct by circulating a controversial email, concerning Mr Hadley, to members of the town council.

At a town council meeting on April 16, Mr Hadley accused Cllr Barnes of "widely circulating a malicious and defamatory allegation" about him.

Mr Hadley quoted from the email at the meeting, claiming the mayor had called his behaviour "a stain on his tenure as mayor" which had "brought the council into disrepute".

At the time of the meeting, Mr Hadley was a Ledbury town councillor.

Herefordshire Council's deputy monitoring officer and two independent adjudicators recently considered Mr Hadley's complaint, and Cllr Barnes's response, and decided that Cllr Barnes had breached the Code of Conduct in one area, namely the part which urges councillors to "treat others with respect and courtesy".

The deputy monitoring officer has advised Cllr Barnes to offer an apology to Mr Hadley "and to observe the Code of Conduct at all times".

Cllr Barnes was asked to comment on the ruling but declined to do so publicly.

Mr Hadley said: "Cllr Barnes said that my behaviour had been 'a stain on his tenure as mayor'; now we can see it was solely his own ill-judged behaviour which has besmirched his year in office."

Mr Hadley added: "I will accept his apology and move on, provided that it is sincere and there is a recognition of what he did wrong."