A MAN who complained to a council about photographs of its former leader may receive compensation and an official apology over the way he was treated.

The private and personal photographs of City of York councillor Rod Hills, who died last year, sparked off a chain of events that led to him being arrested, standing down as leader, then being charged with offences ranging from blackmail to perverting the course of justice. All but a minor traffic charge were dropped.

The photographs were taken into the council's offices by Kevin Young in March 2002. He said he had found them in the street and wanted to raise concerns about whether Councillor Hills was fit to hold his position.

But the council wrongly passed his confidential details to Coun Hills' legal team, who then secured an injunction against Mr Young and another man, barring them from distributing the photographs.

Mr Young said: "What has happened to me since then has been almost catastrophic."

He said he lost his accommodation and had run up legal costs after challenging the council.

Senior councillors were yesterday urged to give compensation and a written apology to Mr Young after council officers said the authority was twice guilty of maladministration.

A confidential report to a committee meeting last night said it should not have disclosed Mr Young's name and address or taken more than two years to resolve a complaint made by Mr Young in 2002 about the authority's actions.

Suzan Hemingway, head of civic, democratic and legal services, said Mr Young's name and address had been disclosed because of poor administration procedures rather than as a wilful act.

She said there had been a number of reasons for taking more than two years to deal with the complaint, but that she still considered it unreasonable and unacceptable.