Northampton Labour account suspended after tweeting councillor wrongly accusing him of drink-driving conviction

A Labour twitter account in Northampton has been deleted after falsely accusing a councillor of being convicted for drink-driving.

Councillor James Hill [Con. Rectory Farm] says he was "shocked" by the tweet posted by the Northampton South Labour Party account - @npton_south_clp - at around 9pm yesterday (February 19).

The tweet was in reply to a video posted by the councillor about his selection as a candidate for Billing and Rectory Farm in upcoming West Northants Unitary Council elections .

The tweet by @npton_south-clp read: "Impressive selection, considering..." before posting an extract from a magistrate's court listing showing the conviction of another 'James Hill' for drink-driving.

The James Hill in the court listing was not the councillor.

Soon afterwards, the tweet was deleted and as of this morning (February 20) the @npton_south_clp account had been deleted.

Councillor Hill told the Chronicle & Echo: "I'm more shocked that whoever it was would be so careless. A very quick google search would show that it wasn't me.

"It's quite disappointing. It was deleted relatively quickly but I was called by a few people about it asking if it was right. It shows how quickly this sort of this spreads.

"All I want is a retraction and an apology. There isn't much harm done but you can't just go around making things up. You need to be careful about what we tweet and what we say."

A Labour spokesperson said:"Swift action was taken on this issue. The account in question has been temporarily suspended, in order that integrity can be restored. Contact has been made with Cllr James Hill and an apology provided, which he has accepted. To avoid repeats as we head into the local election period, a joint statement from Northampton Conservatives and Northampton Labour is to be considered, regards social media do's and don't's."