A CALL has been made for a city council candidate to stand down after he apparently liked the image of a topless woman on Twitter – though he claims his account was hacked.

Andy Graham, Labour candidate for Warndon Parish North ward, said he has not been active on Twitter for over a year and has reported the "breach" to administrators.

Originally reported on Guido Fawkes website on Thursday (April 11), the account has now been taken down, but Tory candidate Nida Hassan has called for her rival to be suspended.

Mrs Hassan said: “These are not the actions of someone who should be elected a leader of our community.

"Objectifying women in this way is outdated and harmful.

"As a modern woman I thought such behaviour had been consigned to the past and to now find it expressed by someone seeking elected office is a huge shock."

She went on to say: "Labour likes to portray themselves as a feminist party.

"If that has any truth, they need to take action against this candidate and suspend him.”

Mrs Hassan is also writing to all the women on Worcester City Council asking them to stand with her against such behaviour.

In response, Andy Graham said: “I have not been active on Twitter for more than a year. I have neither retweeted nor liked this or indeed any other post during that period.

“This security breach has been reported to Twitter. I have now deactivated the account to prevent it from being accessed it again.”

The account in question, @AndyGra91499800, was started in 2018 and the liked tweet was from @obseseins and posted in February this year.

A Labour Party West Midlands spokesman said Mr Graham was only made aware of the tweet when it appeared on the website.

However, another account, with the handle @andygra62132970 and launched in October 2016, which features photos of Mr Graham at Labour Party events, has a hardcore pornographic image in its list of likes.

This account is still active but Mr Graham and Labour did not provide a comment before we went to print.

The Warndon Parish North ward is also being contested on May 2 by the Green Party's Jane Moorhouse, Lib Dems' Sarah Murray and UKIP's Chris Roberts. See: worcester.gov.uk/2019-elections