Shropshire councillor cleared in racial hatred claim

A Shropshire councillor has been cleared of allegations of inciting racial hatred after he opposed plans for a mobile takeaway outside Shrewsbury's Buttermarket nightclub.

Alan Mosley, Shropshire's Labour group leader, was found innocent of any wrongdoing following a probe by the council's standards committee. It follows a complaint made by Yucel Ozturk, of Flaming Great takeaway in Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury.

Councillor Mosley said today: "I am delighted that the committee's findings completely exonerated me and expressed concern that the allegations may have been made out of malice."

Tim Griffiths, chairman of Shropshire Council's assessment sub-committee, said: "It was alleged that comments attributed to Councillor Mosley with regard to a licensing application were intended directly and expressly to cause bias and were implicitly and indirectly intended to incite racial hatred.

"Members of the sub-committee did not consider that any evidence had been submitted which identified a potential breach of the code of conduct."

No-one at Flaming Great was available to comment.