A disgraced councillor due to return to work in March after a year-long suspension following a sexual assault conviction has yet again been urged to resign.
City councillors voted to reiterate calls for former Conservative deputy provost Alan Donnelly to quit, after outrage at the punishment handed down by a watchdog.
Sheriff Ian Wallace found the Torry and Ferryhill councillor guilty of touching his victim’s face, hair and body and kissing him on the face at a civic function in November 2018.
Today’s full meeting of all members – carried out with some councillors in the chamber and some at home on conference call – was the first since March, and the first since the suspension of Donnelly – leaving the ruling administration in a minority.
His former Tory group leader, Douglas Lumsden, said: “There is no place for a convicted sex offender in elected office.
“It is clear the only person who can remove him from office before the next election is Councillor Donnelly.”
The council is also to push for the Councillors’ Code Of Conduct to be altered so that any councillor found guilty of a sex attack – regardless of punishment handed down by the courts – would be removed from office.
Liberal Democrat councillor Ian Yuill was defeated in his attempts to go further still, having wanted council chiefs to carry out work to make sure employees and the public were safe protected from Donnelly in council buildings.