Councillor investigated over 'Muslim rape gang' tweet sent to teenage girl

A message sent from a Twitter account belonging to Coun James Dalton, a councillor at Holme Valley Parish Council in West Yorkshire, described the girl as a "self righteous arrogant kid" after her father tweeted a letter she had written to the Prime Minister about the immigration bill.

The letter described refugees as the "bravest people on earth" and suggested Mr Johnson spend a day in a refugee camp learning about people's experiences fleeing from war torn countries.

A reply from Mr Dalton's account read: "Raising a self righteous arrogant kid there [father's name]".

It added: "Presumably she's yet to be raped by a Muslim rape gang that you encourage her to encourage the government to import more of. Maybe you don't have them in your leafy idyll, though the Oxford "today in Court" briefings suggest..."

A spokeswoman for the Holmfirth-based parish council confirmed it was aware of the message and that the matter was being investigated by the Kirklees Council Monitoring Officer.

The spokeswoman said: "We have received multiple complaints this week about a tweet that has caused upset and these have been passed onto the Monitoring Officer at Kirklees Council, who will be responsible for deciding on the outcome.

"We do take it very seriously and we always reply to complaints informing them on how the matter is being dealt with."

Minutes published by the Parish Council at the end of last year show complaints have previously been raised about Mr Dalton's conduct on social media.

In October 2019, he was told to apologise and to face diversity training after describing a Labour councillor as a "traitor remainer", "common purpose scum" and a "monitoring Nazi".

Earlier in the year, he was also pulled up after replying to a tweet with a picture of nurses suggesting they should go on an "obesity course".

Mr Dalton was removed from standing committees and also had access to his parish council email address removed as a result.

The parish council spokeswoman added: "This councillor has had all the sanctions we can impose, but as the law stands we cannot remove him from the council and we cannot stop him from having a Twitter account.

"These views are not at all representative of the Parish Council's and we are sorry for anyone they may have offended."

When contacted, Mr Dalton told The Yorkshire Post he was unaware of the recent complaints.

He added: "I express my opinions bluntly and forcefully and I don't apologise for it. That's my business and nothing to do with the parish council."

A Kirklees Council spokesman said: “As Holme Valley Parish Council is a parish in Kirklees, we consider any standards complaints about its parish councillors.

“As previously, we would investigate any complaints which we may receive regarding Coun Dalton’s recent activity on social media in accordance with the standards process. Whilst investigations are ongoing on standards matters it would not be appropriate for us to comment.”