A PROMINENT community leader claims he is the victim of a politically motivated and vexatious conspiracy after an investigator found he had brought a local authority into disrepute.

A report into the conduct of Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority member John Blackie concluded he had been discourteous to the authority's officers and other members.

Investigator John Lawrence found Cllr Blackie, who is also leader of Richmondshire District Council and a North Yorkshire county councillor, accused planning officers of "underhand tactics".

According to the report, he also described another park authority member, Robert Heseltine, as "the most reviled man in Wensleydale".

The complaint was made by former authority member, Ann Brooks, who claimed Cllr Blackie "made quite challenging remarks to officers" and "unnecessarily personal remarks" to her and other members during a meeting in March.

The authority's standards committee asked solicitor Mr Lawrence to investigate.

He spoke to several witnesses including park authority chief executive David Butterworth.

He concluded that Cllr Blackie may not have set out to be inpolite, but overreacted in the heat of debate on relaxing planning regulations for barn conversions - a move Cllr Blackie was in favour of but the park authority opposed.

Mr Lawrence said: "Nevertheless, my finding is that Mr Blackie failed to treat others with courtesy and therefore acted in breach of paragraph one of the code of conduct."

He added that the member's conduct could reasonably be regarded as bringing the authority, and his officer as a member of the authority, into disrepute.

But in a strongly worded rejection of the findings, Cllr Blackie claimed Mrs Brooks' complaint was "politically-motivated and vexatious".

He added: "There was no case to answer and the unsubstantiated complaints of Mrs Brooks should have been stopped in their tracks at the standards committee held to consider them."

Cllr Blackie went on to criticise Mr Lawrence for failing to conduct a balanced investigation - and accused Mr Butterworth, Mr Heseltine and another member, Peter Charlesworth, of taking part in a conspiracy against him.

Gillian Cooper, the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority’s solicitor and monitoring officer, said the standards committee would discuss the report on November 25.

“The standards committee will decide at that hearing whether it should be held in public, or whether parts or the whole of the hearing should be held in private.

"In the circumstances, it would be inappropriate for me to make any further comments.”

Mrs Brooks said it would be inappropriate to comment at this stage.