Shamed Lib Dem porn councillor told to resign

Leader of Wigan Council, Lord Peter Smith, has criticised Wigan councillors for their behaviour and told a former Lib Dem councillor that he should have resigned after being caught using his council laptop to watch porn.

One councillor was removed from the meeting last week for using Twitter during the meeting when instructed not to do so and several others left in protest leading the council to introduce mandatory training for new councillors and instructing officers to find a way to deduct money from the allowances of those councillors who were expelled or left the meeting.

Lord Smith told councillor Robert Bleakley, who resigned from the Lib Dems in shame after being caught with porn on his council laptop - something that would have resulted in the instant dismissal of a council employee. In February, Bleakley was found guilty of doctoring an email in an attempt to get two senior employees of the council into enough trouble to lose their jobs. He has been investigated several times by the council's Standards Committee, suspended by the now-defunct Standards Board for England three times and investigated by the police for misuse of public office yet the Lib Dems still didn't expel him and in the end he resigned over the new year.

Lord Smith said that in his long career, the meeting was "the most atrocious meeting I have seen.”