DARTMOUTH town council clerk Chris Horan told a tribunal that his life had been 'destroyed' by a bullying town councillor who at one stage was confronting him in his office on almost a daily basis.

Mr Horan accused 65-year-old former surgeon Brian Boughton of being aggressive and physically threatening during the visits to the clerk's Guildhall office in Dartmouth.

He claimed Mr Boughton had publicly accused him of being 'incompetent' and even other councillors had felt 'physically threatened, intimidated and bullied' by Mr Boughton's behaviour at town council meetings.

The Standards Board of England convened following a series of local government Code of Conduct complaints against Mr Boughton.

The first day of the hearing was told that Mr Boughton had sent an email to a fellow councillor claiming that two other town councillors were exhibiting the first signs of dementia.

Mr Horan claimed that at one point last year Mr Boughton had publicly called town mayor Debbie Morris a 'stupid bitch'.

He also revealed that at times the town council had been forced to warn police to be ready in case Mr Boughton had to be thrown out of the Guildhall council chamber because of his behaviour.

Mr Horan told the three-strong members of the adjudication panel for England: "He has destroyed me. I have been in local government for more than 20 years, never have I had to endure what I have had to endure.

"I am afraid that man has completely destroyed me.

"I have lost my confidence. I am not the person that I was.

"I look back and I can just say that for the last three years my life has been absolutely miserable."

He said that as a result of his problems with Mr Boughton, he had had to go to hospital, take time off work and had suffered both physically and mentally.

"It's come to the point that I don't want to go back to the job that I used to love and enjoyed up until 2006," he told the hearing.

Mr Boughton was called before the hearing following complaints to the Standards Board of England from Mr Horan that he had broken the local government Code of Conduct by undermining and bullying him and had shown contempt towards council staff and council members.

Following a year long investigation by a Standards Board investigator, the matter was placed before an adjudication panel for a hearing in the Grand Hotel's Cavandish Room in Torquay, that is expected to last at least two days.

Mr Horan was the first witness to give evidence at the hearing as he told the panel that during his meetings with Mr Boughton the councillor 'would start to get aggressive, quite heated and I, at times, felt physically threatened and intimidated'.

He said: "As the conversations went on, his voice would be raised and start to get aggressive and on occasions he did swear at me."

He said at one point he had been in his office having a conversation with someone else when he heard Mr Boughton in the main office talking about the opening of the town's new lifeboat station as he referred to town mayor Debbie Morris as 'stupid bitch'.

He said that at council meetings, Mr Boughton sometimes refused to sit down when told to by the mayor.

"I believe Mr Boughton showed total disrespect to the council has a whole and his fellow councillors in the way he acted.

"Councillors and myself felt physically threatened intimidated and bullied. A number of councillors felt unable to participate in the discussion because of his behaviour."

He also told the panel: "On occasions it was felt necessary to inform the local police inspector of the situation regarding the way it looked the meeting might go that evening and some of the difficulties that were anticipated."

Under cross examination by Mr Boughton, who was representing himself, he said: "I had serious concerns about your conduct and the likelihood that you would be asked to leave the council chamber because of your behaviour."

Dartmouth police boss Insp Paul Morgan told the hearing that at times he was so concerned about Mr Boughton's behaviour that 'I had to question myself whether I should intervene professionally'.

Referring to Mr Boughton in council meetings he said: "On certain occasions I have seen somebody shouting and talking over people in what I believe to be an intimidating way."

He said while being cross-examined by Mr Boughton: "I witnessed behaviour I would not have tolerated at a meeting of my own."

Mayor Debbie Morris said that at one stage last year she had come into the council offices just after Mr Boughton had left to be told he had called her a 'hypocritical bitch'.

She said she was 'not very pleased at being called that' but added: "I was more concerned that he should refer to the mayor, to staff in that tone and that way."

She said that the public in Dartmouth had begun to look at the council as a 'laughing stock because it does not do anything'.

She added: "I would say that it is totally Cllr Boughton's fault."

She told the panel there had been times at public council meetings when Mr Boughton had refused to stop talking and sit down when told by herself, the chairman.

She said at one meeting she had threatened to suspend the meeting and at a council's highways meeting she had actually done that.

Leading town councillor Francis Hawke said that he had personally heard Mr Boughton call the clerk 'incompetent' and he had himself had one confrontation with Mr Boughton where he was so close he was 'in my face pointing with his finger'.

"I can understand that some people would think he was being very aggressive and that might lead to something else."

He said he believed that most of the town councillors were working for the good of the town but one or two were 'trying to destroy the reputation of the town council' and that Cllr Boughton was one of them.