COUNCILLOR Seve Gomez-Aspron was tonight cleared of breaching the councillors' code of conduct by St Helens standards committee at the town hall.

The panel deliberated for 45 minutes before clearing the Newton councillor and cabinet member.

The Labour councillor, 30, was investigated by council monitoring officers after two complaints were received against him.

The first individual alleged the councillor had used social media in June 2014 to intimidate him and harm his reputation and also accused him of being behind a phone call in September 2015 in which he was asked to withdraw a complaint against the councillor or he and his family would be harmed and house damaged.

The second complainant reported Cllr Gomez-Aspron - cabinet member for green, smart and sustainable borough - for parking his car on double yellow lines on September 6, 2015. He was also accused of driving his vehicle without a valid MOT between July 10 and September 6 of that year - an offence that can carry a fine of up to £1,000.

Chair of the standards committee meeting, Councillor Joe Pearson, said: "The committee has decided unanimously that councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron has not breached the code of conduct."

He added that it had not been possible for the investigation to determine who had posted the comments in question on Facebook. And regarding the invalid MOT, he said Cllr Gomez-Aspron had simply "made a mistake".

Representing the councillor, solicitor Frances Randle raised the notion of freedom of speech and questioned whether a councillor was acting in their official capacity as a councillor 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

She said: "When you are not acting in your role as a councillor, the code (of conduct) does not apply. The code does not apply to your private life. On none of these occasions was he acting in his official capacity."

She added: "If you believe it was him (who posted the comments on Facebook) then you need to decide if this behaviour reached the threshold of a breach. Or was it mildly critical banter? What about freedom of speech?"

Caroline Kelly, an independent person with no connection to the investigation who was consulted for an impartial opinion, however, said she believed Cllr Aspron-Gomez's behaviour was in breach of the code of conduct.

She said: "I think there's an understanding that as a councillor you will treat everybody with respect, including what you put out there on Facebook."

She also expressed surprise that when Cllr Gomez-Aspron discovered there were four Facebook profiles set up in his name - all of which he claimed were fake - he was satisfied to let a friend complain to Facebook on his behalf.

Ms Kelly said: "If it was me, I would report it myself; I wouldn't leave it to someone else."

The committe was made up of five councillors - Jimmy Jackson, Linda Maloney, Teresa Sims, Lynn Glover and Anthony Burns.

After the decision, Cllr Gomez-Aspron said: "I am glad that the committee saw the complaints for what they were. I appreciate their impartial and unanimous decision.

"It's a shame that some people resort to such spurious and vexatious complaints when they start to lose the debate on local issues such as Parkside. I am more than happy to get on with doing what I love to do: be a strong voice for Newton-le-Willows on St Helens Council."
 

In January 2015 Cllr Gomez-Aspron escaped with a slap on the wrist after being found to have used grossly offensive language to a resident on Facebook.

He had ended a conversation with a woman on the social networking site by writing 'See you next Tuesday', with the expression abbreviated into a form which, a standards committee held at the time was told, is widely known to be a euphemism for a derogatory four-letter word.

Months later the councillor alleged an imposter had posed as him and referred to cyclists as '*obs' on Facebook.