Leader ousted over Irish remark

Neville Sanders was replaced as council leader

An English council chairman has been removed from the post over comments he made about the suicide of a Royal Irish Regiment soldier.

Peterborough councillors voted by a majority of more than 10 in support of a motion calling for 72-year-old Neville Sanders to step down as the city council's leader.

He had already been suspended from the Conservative Party over the comments he made about the death of Royal Irish Regiment soldier Paul Cochrane.

He shot himself at Drumadd barracks in County Armagh in 2001 after saying he had suffered abuse.

Carrickfergus Council in County Antrim wrote to every council in the UK asking for support for an investigation into the incident.

Responding, Mr Sanders said anyone who joined the Army should be "prepared to take a bullet" and he was "sick of paying taxes for the lazy Irish".

He also said "members of the armed forces do get killed, be it by accident or design, that is what they are paid for".

Mr Saunders remained unrepentant following an outcry in Northern Ireland over his remarks.

Paul Cochrane died while serving at Drumadd barracks

Proposing the motion at Wednesday night's meeting, Councillor Adrian Miners said: "The leader has used offensive and appalling language which is totally unacceptable for a councillor to use especially a councillor who happens to be leader of a major unitary authority in England."

He said the council needed to show the public that such language and behaviour "would not be tolerated".

A number of Conservatives opposed the motion saying it was premature and councillor Sanders had not had "a fair trial".

But the motion was passed and Conservative Councillor Ben Franklin was elected as leader in his place.

Carrickfergus Councillor Billy Hamilton travelled to Peterborough to show his support for removing Mr Sanders as council leader.

"To get a letter back, like we did and then to get the foul mouthed abuse which followed it up was absolutely unbelievable," he said beforehand.

'Cover-up accusations'

The Conservatives' Northern Ireland spokesman, Quentin Davies, has already visited the Cochrane family at their home in Belfast to apologise for his colleague's comments.

The Cochrane family said they would only be happy when Mr Sanders was permanently expelled from the party.

Calls for an inquiry into the suicides of young soldiers at their barracks were first made by the parents of four troopers who died at the Deepcut base in the south of England.

They rejected suggestions that the four young soldiers killed themselves using their own rifles, and have accused the Army of a cover-up.

From 1990 to May 2002, 1,748 people died from non-natural causes in and around military property.