PERFECT people leading perfect lives in perfect harmony with their communities.

Just the sort of people we want to represent us on our local councils whether it is at parish, town, district, city or county level.

Unfortunately things go can awry and woe betide any councillor who falls short of the conduct expected of them.

Former county councillor leader Shona Johnstone was suspended temporarily by her group after being found guilty of cycling without due care and attention.

“Nothing more than a misdemeanour” noted one senior Tory but it was enough to thwart her political ambitions to become police commissioner. She is now out of politics altogether.

In Peterborough they do things differently for a prominent councillor convicted of keying a car following an argument was voted back onto the Tory group within weeks. Fines and costs totalled over £2,000 and he apologised for any “distress or embarrassment caused”.

In Fenland, though, the knives remain out for Councillor Kit Owen, whose suspension was increased by colleagues to six months even though his ‘offence’ of downloading porn on his new council computer was regarded by Fenland’s own conduct committee of being an innocent mistake.

Then there is Wisbech UKIP councillor Peter Lagoda facing a single count of benefit fraud from 2009.

Cllr Lagoda has opted for trial by jury. Those who took to Twitter and social media to deliver their ‘verdict’ shame the positions some of them once held.

Their actions undermine and demean not only the political but the judicial process and maybe those who live by their tweeting shall perish likewise!