A FORMER prisoner who served as a councillor for seven years – despite the fact that he was banned from doing so – will be allowed to stand for election in May.

Businessman Richard Spearman lost his seat on North Weald Parish Council when he went to prison for 10 months for insider trading in 2004.

He convinced fellow councillors that he was appealing his conviction and was allowed back on to the council in 2007.

Following concern from residents, parish councillors asked the district council for advice on whether he should be serving at the end of last year.

The district council's monitoring officer, Colleen O'Boyle, said in a letter to the parish council that Cllr Spearman should not have been allowed back onto the council.

“The question of his appeal against his conviction and sentence is completely irrelevant,” she added. “It has only ever been a prospective appeal and has no effect.”

She also questioned why Cllr Spearman had been allowed to serve for so long when he had not been elected to the council in the first place.

But she said no legal challenge to Cllr Spearman's seat could be made more than six months after the end of his sentence, so he was allowed to stand for election to the council in May.

His neighbour, Thornwood resident Des Rees, who has questioned the council over his seat before, said: “Do the parish council feel that he's the right person to be standing, in view of his misdemeanours in the past?

“(The district council report) is damning the council itself for allowing him to take his seat before making the appropriate checks.”

Cllr Spearman has stood down from the council and said on his resignation that he and the clerk, Sue De Luca, had checked that he was allowed to serve in a local council manual after his prison sentence.

“My lack of qualification in 2007 was not explained to me at the time and I was completely unaware of the problem,” he added. “I accept that I need to place my candidature for office before the residents of North Weald parish at the May 2011 elections.”