A LEADING councillor has hit back after being banned from top jobs at the town hall for two years.

Cllr Carol Broad claimed one member, Labour councillor Jean Yates, breached strict rules which ban committee members from discussing the issue in public, by distributing leaflets in the Heysham area calling her 'the weakest link'.

MBI councillors also believe that the two Labour members of the committee had already decided to find against Cllr Broad before she had a chance to put her side of the story.

They insist that adverse press coverage had already poisoned opinions against Cllr Broad, who agreed to repay the money.

Cllr Broad, who claimed more than £8,500 from the council's child care scheme, was given her ban at a meeting of the council's new standards committee last Thursday.

Although committee members acknowledged that Cllr Broad had not broken the 'ambiguous' rules of the scheme, they said: "As a senior councillor of some long standing and the chairman of committees dealing with financial matters, Cllr Broad should have recognised the need to clarify her claims under the scheme with a senior officer, on the basis that such claims could be seen to be excessive."

Cllr Broad was found to have broken clauses six and seven of the councillor's code of conduct, which read: "You should never do anything as a councillor which you could not justify to the public. Your conduct and what the public believes about your conduct, will affect the reputation of your council and of your party if you belong to one.

"It is not enough to avoid actual impropriety. You should, at all times, avoid any occasion for suspicion and any appearance of improper conduct."

Cllr Broad explained to the meeting that she had needed to make use of the scheme after the death of her father, who had looked after her three children.

She chose to pay a relative, her mother-in-law, because she had been unable to find a carer for the children, two of whom have special needs.

She said: "If it had not been for this scheme, in September 1999 when my father died I would have had to relinquish my place on the council. I had to find a carer."

The committee, which consisted of two Labour councillors, two Independents and one member each from the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Green groups, was chaired by the deputy mayor, Cllr Sheila Denwood.

It made its final decision behind closed doors.