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A former Tyneside councillor made a Nazi salute when he was kicked out of a heated meeting over allowances.

David Ord, the former Liberal Democratic councillor for North Tyneside Council’s Northumberland ward, was accused of making the offensive gesture during an angry outburst in November 2014, which he denied.

Now, a report has found Mr Ord did perform the salute and did not intend to do an American Bellamy gesture, as he claimed. The ex-councillor believes the report was a “spectacular waste” of taxpayers’ money.

Six allegations against Mr Ord were investigated in a report by law firm Bevan Brittan, on behalf of North Tyneside Council’s Standards Committee.

These included calling Labour councillor Brian Burdis a “disgusting little man” and “scum”.

But the majority of the report centred on Mr Ord’s exit from a North Tyneside Council meeting on November 27, 2014, when councillors voted in favour of raising their allowances from £7,896 to £9,759 a year.

It said that after a “rant” Mr Ord was asked to leave by chairman Coun Tommy Mulvenna.

But as he left the report says: “He stood with his legs together and raised his right arm, to or above the horizontal, with his hand flat and facing down.”

All of the witnesses interviewed during the investigation reported this as a Nazi salute.

However, Mr Ord maintained he performed the Bellamy salute, historically used during the pledge of allegiance to the American flag. It fell out of use when its similarity to the chilling gesture given during the Third Reich was noted.

He said in doing the Bellamy salute, he meant to “draw an analogy between Labour’s support for increased Basic Allowances and the practice of ‘pork barrel politics’ in the USA”.

Mr Ord said the difference between the salutes was in the angle at which he held his arm, and in an email to monitoring officer Vivienne Geary, he said the allegations of a Nazi salute had been invented for “political purposes”.

He attached an apology in the form of a blank sheet of paper which had the word “sorry” written in the centre in very small print.

The Standards Committee report found Mr Ord had meant to cause offence.

“He should have realised that most if not all councillors would recognise his gesture as a Nazi or Fascist salute, have drawn the conclusion that he was suggesting that their conduct was comparable with the behaviour of the Nazis in pre-war and wartime Germany, and quite reasonably been offended by that comparison,” it said.

It concluded that that Mr Ord “deliberately made a Nazi or Fascist salute”.

Responding to the report, Mr Ord said: “While it is flattering that the Labour party regard me as so dangerous to them that they continue to pursue their specious complaints after I am no longer on the council, it does strike me as a spectacular waste of taxpayers’ money.”

North Tyneside Council did not offer any further comment.