TWO councillors who stepped down from their positions amid confusion over their employment status have been cleared of wrongdoing by police.

Cleveland Police were asked to investigate Jim Rogers and Ron Harrison after they were both elected as Lib Dem councillors for the Zetland ward of Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council in May.

The council's monitoring officer called police after the ruling Labour group raised concerns about Mr Rogers being headteacher at Eston Park School and that Mr Harrison also held a teaching position there at the time of the election. Under electoral rules, people are disqualified from being a councillor if they are in paid employment by that authority.

Mr Harrison said: "Now the police have told us they are taking no further action, my family and I feel a great sense of relief. The prospect of criminal action has dominated our lives for months.

"We stood for the council in good faith.We never intended to deceive anyone. The letter from the police confirms what I have said all along that the situation was created andmanipulated by Labour for their own ends."

Mr Rogers said: "I am delighted to be exonerated and to have the integrity of our actions acknowledged. The actions of this Labour local authority has slurred the names of honest individuals and wasted public money."

The leader of the council and the Labour group, Coun George Dunning, said: "I am not surprised that the police are not taking any action because the by-election is taking place shortly.

"The decision does not mean that the election of Mr Rogers and Mr Harrison was right and if the Liberal Democrats believed it was, they would not have stepped down."

Redcar's Lib Dem MP, Ian Swales, has promised to explore in Parliament ways of ending the legal minefield Mr Harrison and Mr Rogers found themselves in.

He said: "No respectable people should have their reputations and integrity questioned in the way Ron and Jim have over several months. I will be using the facts of this case to try to prevent this happening to anyone in the future. There has got to be a better way to deal with situations like this."