NEWTON-LE-WILLOWS councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron will appear before the council's standards committee next week after complaints over his use of social media.

An investigation has been launched into the councillor after the council received "a number of complaints" between November last year and September 2017, the majority of which refer to his "use of social media".

Cllr Gomez-Aspron was cabinet member for green smart and sustainable borough for part of the period up to May 2017 and he has been the authority's Armed Forces Champion since July.

A council document states that the complaints received are from members of the public "who live in different parts of the borough".

There are 12 complaints which have been made against the councillor in total, which the standards committee will consider.

These include "alleged inappropriate and disrespectful comments, use of swear words, emojis and emoticons".

One complainant raised concerns over the description of Cllr Gomez-Aspron's personal Twitter account as being "inappropriate", underlining the words "always right" in a screenshot of the profile which was submitted.

The committee must consider the views of an independent party, who has no connection to the council.

The document adds that it is understood Cllr Gomez-Aspron "has not contacted the Independent Person regarding this matter".

It adds: "As far as can be ascertained, Cllr Gomez-Aspron does not deny being responsible for the comments in his name contained in these complaints".

Cllr Gomez-Aspron is to appear at St Helens town hall before the committee on Tuesday next week (December 12).

The document states the committee "may consider whether it wishes to censure the elected member or refer the matter to council to consider censuring the elected member".

In February 2016, Cllr Gomez-Aspron was cleared of a breach of the councillors' code of conduct by St Helens standards committee.

In January 2015 he 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.