A former councillor reprimanded for failing to remove pornographic links on the parish council website says he did nothing wrong.

Ex-Yatton parish councillor Chris Graeme-Drury – whose day job was as a web designer – was found guilty of breaking the council's code of conduct by a panel appointed by the Standards Board for England, which monitors councillors' behaviour.

At the hearing last month, Mr Graeme-Drury was found guilty of bringing the council's name into disrepute after it heard he had failed to act after a complaint that links to pornographic sites had been found on the parish council's website.

The panel was told that despite being asked to shut the site down immediately by the then parish council chairman Juley Howard, Mr Graeme-Drury failed to do so, instructed other parish councillors not to touch the website, and went on holiday to Australia for six weeks.

Days after he went on holiday, the parish council had to arrange for the site to be taken offline.

But Mr Graeme-Drury has since said there were no links found on the website and that he didn't have the authority to shut it down.

Mr Graeme-Drury, who used to live at Horsecastle Farm Close in Yatton but has now moved abroad with his family, said when the complaint was first made the website-hosting company investigated.

He said: "Surprisingly, there was no pornography found on the site or links to it and neither the hosting company or myself had the authority to switch off the website. This was reported to the council at the time and I went away on holiday and handed it back to the parish office for action.

"As my family and I had been planning a sabbatical abroad for over two years, we saw no reason to delay it due the ongoing issues within the Yatton Parish Council."

Mr Graeme-Drury, who resigned as a councillor in August, said eight other people, including councillors, had direct access to the website and could have removed content if they wished.

But he admitted he wrote to the parish council, after taking legal advice, asking members not to touch the site as he feared any evidence could be interfered with.

An investigation was launched by the Standards Board for England, which appointed North Somerset Council's standards committee investigating officer and deputy monitoring officer, Fiona Robertson, to investigate the claims.

She said it was "one of the most serious breaches of the code" she had dealt with.

At the hearing, standards committee chairman Peter Barrett said although there was nothing to suggest that Mr Graeme-Drury was responsible for the pornographic materialon the website, his actions in not resolving the problem satisfactorily and his instruction to others not to interfere with the website, had led to a breach of the code.

Mr Graeme-Drury, who was unable to attend the hearing, said: "As I was not there to defend myself, the outcome doesn't surprise me."