A parish councillor has been suspended from public office for bullying his council clerk.

Ian Fulton has been barred from Glusburn Parish Council for a month for being intimidating and using threatening language towards parish clerk Judith Naylor in a series of e-mails sent between February and April last year. Craven District Council’s standards sub-committee imposed the sanction at a “sentencing” hearing, in the wake of an independent investigation by ethical standards officer Jennifer Rodgers.

And it later emerged Councillor Fulton had also been placed on Craven District Council’s Violent and Challenging Behaviour Register following two separate confrontations with district council employees last year.

Announcing the sanction, sub-committee chairman David Ansbro said: “Cllr Fulton, in our opinion, needs to forget the past and face the future, especially bearing in mind his many obvious commitments to voluntary work.”

Speaking after the hearing, Cllr Fulton said: “I am satisfied with the decision. I think it was fair. I have no ill feeling. It’s a rap on the knuckles and I take it seriously.”

The sub-committee also found that Cllr Fulton brought his office of councillor into disrepute by asking North Yorkshire County Council to disregard a letter from the parish council in relation to a planning application and used his position improperly.

Cllr Fulton, who lives in Farnhill, said he had no intention of resigning as a parish councillor after his ban ended on February 27.

Following two separate incidents involving district council staff last year, Cllr Fulton has been placed on the authority’s Violent and Challenging Behaviour Register.

The first incident happened on September 25 when a Craven District Council enforcement officer went to Cllr Fulton’s home regarding a boundary issue.

He said: “I inadvertently crashed into the employee. I didn’t know he was serving a writ. Technically it was an assault.”

In the other incident, it is alleged he told a member of staff that the “Craven planning department needs shooting” in November.