A leading Green Party figure rapped for leaking confidential information says he stands by what he did.

Mark Hood breached Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council’s (TMBC) code of conduct, it has been found, after he published material on social media knowing it was not for public consumption.

Cllr Hood broke the rules by releasing details of talks over moving the Angel Centre leisure complex onto the site of a miniature railway in Tonbridge, which were discussed during a TMBC workshop in March last year.

The member, who is also a key member of the Green Party’s group at Kent County Council, believed the matter was in the public interest.

But the investigation, carried out by Richard Lingard LLB, an investigator appointed by the council’s monitoring officer, found Cllr Hood had breached TMBC’s code of conduct.

Local Democracy Reporting Service has obtained a copy of the report from the joint standards committee hearing panel in December last year and published in February.

The report concluded that the meeting was confidential and that Cllr Hood had “disclosed information acquired from a confidential workshop to the public”.

The report notes: “Cllr Hood submitted that the hearing should be held in public on the grounds that it would be in the public interest to do so. He contended that no further information relating to the workshop would be disclosed by holding the hearing in public.

“In light of the representations made, the panel considered that it was important that the confidentiality of the ongoing consultant work in respect of the asset review of the Tonbridge town centre was maintained and the investigation of the other associated outstanding complaints was not prejudiced, the public interest in maintaining the exemption should prevail and the matter should be heard in private.

“However, the panel agreed that the monitoring officer be asked to consider whether the recordings of the hearing and the confidential report could be released to the public at a later date once the consultancy report and the other associated outstanding complaints had been resolved.”

Cllr Hood conceded he had asked the monitoring officer if he could release information from the briefing and was advised not to.

But he decided to ignore the advice and published the details anyway, resulting in a complaint being lodged by the Conservative leader of TMBC, Cllr Matt Boughton.

Cllr Hood said after the February 12 report was published: “I stand by what I did.”

A statement read to the panel from Cllr Hood said: "I have been elected to serve my residents to the best of my abilities, to be honest and transparent and place their best interests at the heart of how I conduct myself.

"They are the most important thing, ahead of party allegiance and before duty to the borough council. I have deep roots in my community.

"I have acted in good faith to tell the truth in their interests as a resident of 51 years and now as their elected representative."

Cllr Boughton said: “We should not underestimate the impact of this. It was a massive breach of trust.

“Trust takes time to rebuild and I would urge Cllr Hood to think carefully about the way he is going to rebuild that.”