A BOURNEMOUTH councillor is under investigation for allegedly photocopying confidential information.

Cllr Roger West has been referred to the standards committee and the council’s monitoring officer is compiling a report.

He is a Liberal Democrat member for Redhill and Northbourne and the complaint was made by Cllr Peter Charon, a fellow ward member and also the Conservative leader of the council.

The incident is understood to relate to the fallout from one of Cllr West’s own complaints against another senior Tory, which led to calls for the council’s top legal officer to resign, The investigation notice says that Cllr West and his wife were allegedly photocopying a bundle of documents, including confidential information, in the members’ resource room on May 1.

The notice says Cllr West has potentially breached the code of conduct by bringing his office into disrepute and misusing council resources.

Cllr West declined to comment.

Cllr Charon said: “I made the complaint as a result of complaints that were made to me by colleagues.”

He declined to comment further.

In March, the council’s deputy leader John Beesley was cleared of a complaint made by Cllr West after a 15-month investigation.

Cllr Beesley was alleged to have failed to declare a prejudicial interest planning applications handled by consultant Tony Ramsden, a friend and former colleague on the council.

However, he produced evidence to contradict the evidence of the monitoring officer, Joy Postings, which was crucial to the case against him. He claimed afterwards her position was “untenable”.

He said at the time: “It was surprising that the crucial emails were not included by the monitoring officer in the bundle.

“That was left to me to find, which proved beyond any doubt the truth to what I’d been saying in my witness statement.”

Cllr Charon also alleged Cllr West failed to declare his own relationships with planning agents. The standards sub-committee decided Cllr West should receive words of advice.