A HEARING will be held on Friday to consider whether a senior Bournemouth councillor breached the code of conduct when dealing with an officer.

Conservative cabinet member Cllr Robert Lawton has been investigated for five potential breaches of the code following a complaint by a female council officer.

This investigation has now been concluded and the report will be made public at the standards board hearing on Friday.

But a covering report states that only one of the five incidents has been upheld and that Cllr Lawton has accepted the investigator’s finding that he breached the code on this one occasion.

The Echo understands that the allegations of improper behaviour of a sexual nature have not been upheld and that the one incident that is not disputed centres around whether Cllr Lawton treated the officer with respect.

Cllr Lawton has been invited to attend the public hearing but both the investigating officer and the complainant are not required to attend.

A panel of three people – Cllr Stephen Chappell and independent members Roy Wardle and Dr Ann Hemingway – will consider the investigating officer’s report at Friday’s hearing and decide whether the council’s code of conduct has been breached.

If they decide that it has, they will then announce what sanction, if any, should apply.

As well as being cabinet member for housing and environment, Cllr Lawton is also chair of the Bournemouth East Conservative Association.

He also stood in last year’s Conservative leadership contest but lost out to Cllr Peter Charon.