A YORK councillor who is accused of bullying and intimidatory behaviour has finally been identified.

He is Haxby town councillor Tony Richardson, a Conservative former member of City of York Council.

He is facing a city council standards sub-committee hearing later this month over a series of allegations against him - but says he will 'fight this all the way until justice is the victor.'

The Press reported earlier this year how the sub-committee was due to consider allegations against an unidentified member of a parish/town council in the York area.

This newspaper subsequently urged York council to hold the hearing in public and name the councillor, arguing that it was clearly in the public interest for their identity to be known by the electors whom they represented.

We argued that if the veil of secrecy was not lifted, people all over York might wrongly wonder if the allegations related to a member of their own local town or parish council.

Now agenda papers have been published for a hearing on April 20 in which Cllr Richardson is named as the councillor at the centre of the allegations.

A report says one complaint against him was that he corresponded with other town councillors and the clerk 'in a manner which, it is alleged, was bullying, threatening and intimidating.'

It says another accusation is that he was 'disruptive, aggressive and confrontational' during a town council meeting, in particular towards the clerk. It also says the clerk had alleged that Cllr Richardson had assaulted him during a meeting.

The report says issues to be determined are:

*Has Cllr Richardson breached Haxby Town Council’s Code of Conduct?

*If so, should a sanction should be imposed and if so, what sanction?

The city council has also published a 465 page investigating officer's report, headed 'strictly private and confidential,' which has been partially redacted but goes into the allegations in great detail.

Cllr Richardson told The Press he intended to be at the hearing 'to refute all claims as made up stories.'

He claimed a 'false and misleading' statement made by York Council in The Press was 'nothing short of slander, meant to tarnish me before the hearing.'

He claimed he had never assaulted any clerk and had been cleared in a court of law of any wrong doing.

He claimed: "The standards process is flawed, biased and not fit for purpose as it is.

"The law needs to change so that the Local Government Act 1972 is a criminal law."

He said he feared it would not be a neutral hearing but warned: "At the first hint of being hung for nothing, the case will go to the Ombudsman for Local Government."