A TOWN councillor labelled fellow council members "gutter rats" and "filthy scum" in an email.

A hearing found that Sandbach town councillor David Jack, who also described another councillor as "a p***head" on Facebook and made derogatory comments about a member of the public, breached the code of conduct by his behaviour.

The hearing sub-committee, made up of three Cheshire East councillors, also determined Cllr Jack had breached the code regarding disclosure of information given in confidence by posting publicly about a complaint against him.

The council's complaints process is confidential until it is decided whether or not a public hearing should take place.

The hearing, which was held on Wednesday, came after three separate complaints were made against Cllr Jack – two by members of the public, Mia Sykes and Robert Walker, and another by Sandbach town councillors Sam Corcoran, Donal Hegarty and Alan Smith.

Cllr Jack had been expected to attend the hearing at Crewe Municipal Buildings but did not turn up. The committee said they had read and considered his response to the complaints.

Investigator Simon Goacher, who looked into the allegations, told the hearing he had interviewed Cllr Jack in relation Ms Sykes' complaint but the councillor had declined to be interviewed in relation to the other complaints, which had been made later.

He said Cllr Jack had declined to provide any information regarding those and emailed him back saying: "Like I said, it's a fettered and corrupt process with no purpose other than to belittle and humiliate and intimidate me."

Mr Goacher told the sub-committee, made up of councillors Margaret Simon, Patrick Redstone and David Marren: "There are a number of different social media posts and emails which, the complainants say, contain material and comments from Cllr Jack which are offensive and therefore amount to a breach of the code both in respect of the duty to promote high standards of conduct but also in terms of showing respect to others.

"[There is] Mia Sykes' complaint that Cllr Jack took a video recording of her when she was speaking at a council meeting and then placed that recording without her knowledge or consent on YouTube.

"And then the other matter is that he – and this is where the failure to comply with duty of confidentiality in the code is relevant – when Mia Sykes did complain about Cllr Jack, he then actually posted the complaint on social media and made comments about it."

Mr Goacher added: "Cllr Jack could not say he wasn't aware of that because in the post that he posted, he actually made a comment that he was breaching the code in doing it."

The investigator then referred the committee to extracts from a number of emails sent by Cllr Jack which, he said, in his view used words which 'have no place in public life'.

He added: "I won't read out all the words…some of them are offensive and I wouldn't necessarily want to read them out in a public forum."

He said Cllr Jack didn't deny saying any of those things.

"He has done all these things, he said all these things, to a certain extent he seems quite proud that he's done it," said Mr Goacher.

The code of conduct only applies to councillors acting in their capacity as a councillor.

Mr Goacher told the hearing the abusive and offensive comments were 'written using his council email address, mostly addressed to council members and/or officers and mostly related to council business or comments about other councillors in there'.

He said, in his defence, Cllr Jack had referred to his rights to freedom of expression, particularly as protected by Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

But Mr Goacher said: "The right to freedom of expression is a very important right, it's fundamental but it is qualified, it's not without any restriction."

He said although politicians were afforded an additional higher degree of protection for political expression, 'politicians, elected members, cannot engage in gratuitous, offensive comments and then say 'well that's political expression, therefore you can't find me in breach of the code for it'.

The investigator continued: "Cllr Jack seeks to argue that this is a Labour conspiracy against him, instigated by the leader of Cheshire East Council. He provides no evidence whatsoever to support that assertion.

"No one is saying, or ever could say in a democratic society, that Cllr Jack cannot criticise the Labour Party, the Labour group locally, or engage in politics generally or any other political group that he disagrees with… what the law says, and what he cannot do, is just engage in gratuitous abuse and not expect any consequences for that.

"In this case, he's gone well beyond what is protected by Article 10."

He said Cllr Jack had claimed that he had been receiving abuse but had provided no evidence of it.

"You would think if he'd been on the receiving end of the amount of trolling and abuse that he says he has, rather like we have all these emails with his name on from him with all of these comments, he would be able to produce a batch of similar or even more with all of these emails and social media posts that he claims are being made about him," said Mr Goacher.

"He states that the police are investigating issues, but when I've asked him to provide copies of correspondence with the police or details of the police, he's refused to do so."

After adjourning for more than three hours the committee determined the emails and social media posts had been sent by Cllr Jack in his capacity as a councillor.

Committee chairman Cllr Simon said many of the emails were offensive and showed no respect for others so Cllr Jack had breached the code regarding high standards of conduct and treating others with courtesy.

It was determined he had breached the code regarding disclosure of information given in confidence by posting publicly about the complaint against him.

They said the recording and publishing of the meeting [the video] was not a breach of the code.

Cllr Simon said: "As a community leader, there is no place for using abusive, belittling or offensive language against fellow councillors or members of the public."

The committee recommended Sandbach Town Council arrange training for Cllr Jack on the code of conduct and on equality and diversity.

It also recommended that Sandbach Town Council exclude him from attending the committee and sub-committees he sits on until he has completed the training.

They also asked that the findings of the hearing be published.