A LONG-SERVING former councillor has been publicly rebuked for posting a homophobic comment on social media.
Tom McAughtrie was a Scottish Labour councillor in Dumfries and Galloway for more than 30 years before being suspended by the party in 2016.
In a post written using his council-issued mobile phone, he called a local gay rights activist and an Anglican priest she was pictured with “deviants”.
Mr McAughtrie declined to attend a hearing of the Standards Commission for Scotland (SCS) in which he was censured for his “disrespectful behaviour and misuse of council facilities”.
Iain Macwhirter: Jeremy Corbyn says he has a lot to do to win back Scotland. He's right
The panel said that had Mr McAughtrie still been a councillor, he would have been suspended. He failed to secure re-election in last year’s local polls.
Panel chair Tricia Stewart said: “Those in public life must take steps to ensure their behaviour does not open the door to intimidation and must uphold high ethical standards.
“The hearing panel considered the language used in the posting was wholly unacceptable and unjustified and understandably the complainer felt threatened by it.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel