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A Tory politician who has been suspended over an offensive tweet about Jeremy Corbyn and is under investigation by the party says that he deeply regrets his "stupid" remark.

Councillor Roger Patterson, who represents the Scampton ward on West Lindsey District Council, posted a tweet at 11.52pm on Wednesday, July 24 in which he wrote that "traitor" Corbyn should be "swinging from the gallows like Saddam Hussein".

He also posted that the Labour leader had "betrayed this country by his support for terrorists and our enemies".

(Image: West Lindsey District Council)

Saddam Hussein was hanged on December 30, 2006 after he was given a death sentence for the killing of 148 men and boys in in the northern Iraqi town of Dujail in 1982.

Cllr Patterson's tweet was deleted and his Twitter account locked and he apologised for tweeting "something stupid" about Corbyn which he said was "misinterpreted".

He has since spoken further about the post and concedes he was wrong.

He said: “I’m not going to defend myself because it was quite a stupid thing to say.

"It wasn’t in anyway inciting anybody to do anything, it was a stupid remark when I was tired and late at night.”

(Image: Cllr Roger Patterson/Twitter)

He said that as a councillor he often saw abusive tweets, including those aimed at his own party, as well as other discrimination on the social media platform and that he often reported incidents, including antisemitism, himself.

“All these sort of things get on top of you. The trigger was that Jeremy Hunt was mentioned in a tweet about something about Aushwitz and I tweeted back “prove it”,” he said.

“It was an off-the-cuff remark, something I deeply regretted saying afterwards. The damage is done though, it’s there.

“I should know better, but I’m a human being, we make mistakes and all say stupid things that we regret.”

He said that since the story broke, previous stories have also resurfaced of his links to an alleged Islamophobic Facebook group.

He said: “I’m getting accused of being homophobic and Islamophobic but I’m not.

“I’m quite a vocal critic of antisemitism on Twitter. Some of the things I see is vile and I report it. I have a go back about it.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t but I can’t help it because it’s wrong.”

He said his workplace is also getting calls telling bosses to sack him.

Cllr Patterson said he had spoken to West Lindsey Council leader Giles McNeill who “obviously wasn’t very happy”.

He said: "It’s caused offence to people and embarrassed my party and colleagues.

“It’s like when you’re a child and you tell your parents you hate them. It was off the cuff, it was deplorable, it’s out there.”

He said he understood how it was worse for an elected politician to tweet similar statements “to an extent”.

He added: “As a person, I’m a human being as well and we all have our short comings as human beings. We all do some things sometimes or say things that we don’t mean to say.

“It’s not really about me being a public official, it’s worse because I’m an elected official, it’s just I’m also human being and I said something stupid that I deeply regret and didn’t mean."

He said he had learnt his lesson and that he needed to be more careful in the future.

“I had a moment where I wasn’t thinking clearly and said something stupid," he said.

“Hopefully people will understand I did something stupid and I’m answering for it.

“I hope they will eventually forgive me.”

The Gainsborough Conservative website describes Councillor Patterson as a “champion of democracy”.

He currently sits on West Lindsey councils planning committee and was first elected to the authority in 2011.