Election hopeful Thom Campion apologises for sexist, abusive rants
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Election hopeful Thom Campion apologises for sexist, abusive rants
An election candidate has apologised for posting a string of sexist and abusive messages on Twitter.
Thom Campion, 23, said that the tweets, from 2012 and 2013, were "in no way reflective of my views today".
The Liberal Democrat is standing in the Newcastle City Council by-election for the Castle ward, after the death of the party's former city leader Anita Lower.
The four posts, on a now deleted account, contained sexual swear words and derogatory comments about women.
The Liberal Democrats said it was satisfied the posts were not reflective of Mr Campion's "current views or social media output".
Screenshots of the slurs first resurfaced on Twitter in 2019 when he was standing as a parliamentary candidate for Blyth Valley at the last general election, under the name Thom Chapman.
Mr Campion said: "I am sorry for the offence created by these past comments, which were made when I was still an adolescent.
"They are in no way reflective of my views today."
'Derogatory and nasty'
Labour councillor Clare Penny-Evans said her party's women councillors were "shocked, disappointed and upset at this misogyny".
She added: "This is especially upsetting given that this by-election was caused due to the sad death of a strong woman councillor who herself had led the way by being the first woman leader of her party.
"Voters in the Castle ward deserve better."
A Conservative Party spokesman added that Mr Campion's language was "sexist, derogatory and nasty" and that "in 2021 we should be able to expect better of those seeing public office".
Mr Campion is one of five men contesting the Castle by-election on 9 September.
The others are Labour's Andrew Herridge, Conservative John Watts, Green Party candidate Andrew Thorp, and Brian Moore of the North East Party.
Castle, where the Lib Dems hold the other two seats, is a large ward in the north of Newcastle covering the villages of Brunswick, Hazlerigg, and Dinnington as well as sections of the Newcastle Great Park and Kingston Park.
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