A Labour councillor joked on social media about Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen shortly after Holocaust Memorial Day.

Councillor Bill Shelton yesterday shared an old picture of himself as a younger, slimmer man on Facebook with the caption ‘Me in the search for a good meal......or is it just released from Belsen!’

The picture showed him shirtless in denim shorts.

Coun Shelton, who represents the Saffron ward on Leicester City Council, shared the post two days after Holocaust Memorial Day on Saturday, when the victims of Nazi attempts to exterminate the Jews were commemorated.

Bergen-Belsen is one of the most infamous places associated with the Nazi genocide and has become a symbol of their crimes against humanity.

When it was liberated by British soldiers in April 1945 some 60,000 prisoners, many half starved and near death, were discovered along with 13,000 unburied corpses.

In all an estimated 50,000 Jews and Soviet prisoners of war were murdered there during the Second World War.

When Coun Shelton was contacted by the Mercury to ask why he had worded the post as he did he immediately apologised and asked for advice about how he could delete it.

He stressed he was not anti-Semitic.

He said: "I’m sincerely sorry for any offence it caused. With hindsight I should not have said it and the timing was very bad."

Coun Shelton said it had been a poor attempt at humour.

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He said “I didn’t think about it and I should have. It isn’t me.

“I have been campaigning against racism of all kinds for decades - since the 1960s.

“I am very sorry. It shouldn’t have happened.

“It will not happen again. I’m very sorry.

"One of the people I know on Facebook pointed out what I had done.

"I said ‘Ooops!’ because it was obviously the wrong thing to do.”

Former Leicester Labour councillor Sundip Meghani challenged him online.

When the Mercury contacted Mr Meghani he said: “I wrote a message in a private capacity on Bill Shelton’s Facebook account.

“I thought his joke was in very poor taste and the timing was pretty bad.

“Labour politicians need to be mindful of anti-Semitism in our party and we must never make crass jokes about the horrors surrounding the Holocaust.

“I think it was an error on Bill’s part for which I’m glad he has apologised.”