A Forest councillor, accused of illegally interfering with Great Crested Newt traps at Cinderford's 'Northern Quarter' redevelopment site, has been exonerated by police.

Andrew Gardiner from Ruardean had been rapped by the Forest of Dean District Council's Standards Committee and reported to police after he admitted freeing a number of newts at the site of the old Northern United Mine at Steam Mills.

The newts, a protected species, had been collected in traps in order to be moved to a new habitat to make way for a proposed £15million college campus.

But Councillor Gardiner claims that any attempt to re-home the amphibians would only result in them, being attacked by newts resident on the new site.

The council's standards committee, meeting in camera, found him guilty of breaching the council's code of conduct and bringing the council into disrepute.

He was then stripped of his membership of the licensing committee, the environmental sub-committee and of two outside bodies, the Drybrook Quarry Liaison Group and the Wye Navigation Advisory Committee.

He was also reported to Gloucestershire Police with a view to prosecution.

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