A councillor has been cleared of breaching the code of conduct after allegations she threatened to have a member of the public removed from a meeting by force.

Former Tory West Wiltshire District Councillor Georgie Denison-Pender, who is standing in Thursday’s Wiltshire Council elections for Westbury East, appeared before the standards sub-committee at County Hall in Bythesea Road, Trowbridge, yesterday.

It was alleged she threatened to have Ian Yates, of Palmer Grove, Semington forcibly removed from a West Wiltshire District Council planning meeting on July 31 last year, in her capacity as chairman.

The complaint stemmed from discussions over a retrospective planning application made by Irish travellers, who had set up camp on land next to West Wiltshire Crematorium in Semington in September 2007, without planning permission.

At the meeting, Cllr Denison-Pender cut the speaking time from the allotted three minutes to two minutes, because of the amount of people wanting to speak.

In a statement, Mr Yates said: “I had barely spoken, then without warning the chair person said that I should cease speaking or she would have me forcibly removed. I feel she deliberately slighted me.

“Later in the meeting she allowed the applicants representatives to continue unabated even though a tissue of fabrication was being said.”

At Tuesday’s hearing it was said that Cllr Denison-Pender allowed a vicar to continue speaking, even after he referred to those opposed to the travellers’ planning application as Nazis.

Defending herself, Cllr Denison-Pender said: “I have never removed anyone physically in my life and I certainly wouldn’t do that in a public meeting.

“I had absolutely no intention of slighting or bullying Mr Yates. I feel that a breach is something that is done on purpose and I’m very sorry that we’ve got here.

“I think there’s a possibility that Mr Yates didn’t hear me probably at the meeting because there were over 150 people in the room.”

Investigations officer Rachel Jackson interviewed councillors and members of the public who were at the meeting, but not Mr Yates’ witnesses, Semington parish councillors Francis Dobbyn and Kevin Lockwood, as she did not consider them to be impartial witnesses.

But at the hearing, Mr Yates said he didn’t know Mr Dobbyn ‘from a bar of soap’.

The sub-committee found Cllr Denison-Pender had not breached any of the relevant sections of the code of conduct including: treating others with respect, bullying, and bringing her office or authority into disrepute.

But the sub-committee will put forward suggestions to Wiltshire Council on how future planning meetings and investigations should be carried out with regards to cutting speaking time and appointing inexperienced chairmen at planning meetings.

After the hearing, Mr Yates said: “I didn’t expect them to find against the councillor but I was most pleased about all the observations they made which will be passed on to the new council when we get to make them behave in a better manner than we were treated by the previous council.”