A BITTER leadership contest has been fought over a council hotseat amid claims of rude behaviour and unpleasantness. Veteran Cllr Jonathan Hawkins has been returned as Kingswear Parish Council chairman following a drawn out election battle against Cllr Jan Henshaw that he described as the unfortunate 'washing of dirty clothes in public'. It took two meetings – the first of which saw Cllr Hawkins leave the room for half-an-hour to consider his position – and then on Tuesday a second round of voting by councillors to complete the election process. Minutes of the original annual general meeting of the parish council held on May 20 have also had to be altered after Cllr Henshaw wanted it recorded that she was treated rudely and with disrespect. And it emerged that on the day in question Cllr Hawkins had driven down from Yorkshire where he had been supporting a friend whose father was ill and later died. Vice chairman Annie Lovell said: 'Jonathan could have possibly handled it better but he was in a tired state and he'd come down especially. 'People can't always behave in a way we want them to when they are in situations like that. 'He was understandably tired and upset and not everybody handles things the way we would like all the time. Sometimes we don't understand that people can get cross and frustrated.' She added: 'Given the circumstances, when somebody is obviously upset you have to make allowances for people.'

For the full story, see this week's Dartmouth Chronicle