ST HELENS Council's standards committee has recommended numerous sanctions against Newton councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron after it upheld a majority of complaints which were made against him.

At a three-hour meeting at the town hall on Tuesday, the committee was told of 13 separate complaints made against the councillor, mostly in relation to his use of social media.

The committee upheld nine of them in full and three in part. One was not upheld.

An investigation had been launched into the councillor after the council had received "a number of complaints" between November last year and September 2017.

Complaints were received from members of the public "who live in different parts of the borough".

They include "alleged inappropriate and disrespectful comments, use of swear words, emojis and emoticons" and relate to content on Cllr Gomez-Aspron's personal and council Twitter profiles and his Facebook account.

Among the comments were one which referred to a group on the Newtonian Network Facebook group as: "ASBO/harassment order crew" and saying "luckily the majority of people who live here are full-wits instead of half and below".

Meanwhile, one comment from his council Twitter account stated: "I've probably been with a few dogs in my time".

St Helens Council's head of legal services Jan Bakewell told the committee they should consider whether Councillor Gomez-Aspron's conduct has "fallen below the standards expected of this council".

She asked them to "bear in mind" the ITC Protocol which had been agreed by council members to "prevent complaints from the public".

Members were asked to consider "the perception of these comments from members of the public".

Complainants had stated they believe the comments are "bringing the role of a councillor into disrepute and the council into disrepute".

Announcing the committee's decision, monitoring officer Peter Hughes said members have decided to "censure the member for the comments and in response to the complaints that have been upheld.

"In addition the members are instructing me in making strong recommendations to the member to attend training on ICT and social media usage."

Mr Hughes added: "There are recommendations to the leader of the council that your nomination as the local representative in terms of armed forces champion be reallocated.

"They recommend to the leader that you are removed from the personnel committee."

At the hearing Cllr Gomez-Aspron expressed "disappointment" with the way the process had been upheld, saying the lengthy period has made it "difficult to give responses".

He also claimed the council's code of conduct doesn't refer to a representative's "private life" adding "we are not on duty 24/7".

Cllr Gomez-Aspron also referred to a case in 2006 involving then London mayor Ken Livingstone, who in the Court of Appeal avoided sanctions for comments made when he was off duty.

In a statement following the hearing Cllr Gomez-Aspron said: “It was good to see that some of the complaints, such as the ludicrous complaint that I’d egged someone’s house were concluded to have absolutely no evidence.

"We seem to live in a world where a select few are happy to harass you, your family, post what they want on social media and then complain if anyone dare to reply or disagree.

"Irrelevant of whether it’s the truth or not. I’m afraid that my biggest concern are the people of Newton-le-Willows and my home town. Not people from all over St Helens. That won’t stop me being tenacious and honest.

"I’m sure that the irony will be that those who complain will now share this link on social media to post more abuse.”