A COUNCILLOR faces court action from his own council - for allegedly squatting in a council house.
Clr Colin Walder is expected to face court action from Kirklees Council to evict him from the Dalton property.
And news of the action comes just a week after the 53-year-old councillor was convicted by Huddersfield magistrates of harassing his wife.
Clr Walder has been served notice to quit the council property where he has been living since last April.
He was given seven days to leave the house in West Grove Avenue at the beginning of this month.
But he said he is determined to stay at present because he claims he has nowhere else to go and could end up on the streets.
Kirklees Council must now serve a court order to try to get him out.
It is feared a legal bill of hundreds of pounds could result from the action.
Critics have called Clr Walder a political embarrassment who has brought the whole council into disrepute.
Serving the Dalton ward, Clr Walder received a £10,800 allowance last year.
He was suspended by the council's Liberal Democrat group after last week being found guilty of harassing his estranged wife Natalie.
Owing to marriage problems, Mr Walder was forced to leave his marital home last March. He eventually moved in as a lodger at the West Grove Avenue council property rented by his friend Dawn Hughes. She lived there with her husband Philip and three-year-old daughter Rebekah.
The Hughes family now live on the Costa Blanca in Spain, saying they were ousted and were eventually left without a home in Kirklees.
Mrs Hughes claims she gave up her house after the stress of the situation worsened her epileptic fits.
Speaking from Spain, she said she rued the day Clr Walder moved in.
Her hopes of buying the house have been dashed.
"We trusted Colin," she said. "He's played me for an idiot ... and at the end of the day I have been screwed.
"I have no home in England now. It's been an absolute nightmare and totally confusing to me."
Dawn moved into the house in the late 1990s.
She said she fitted it out with a new kitchen and bathroom costing £8,000.
But now Clr Walder lives at the home with his 28-year-old son.
"I pay rent, I pay council tax," said the councillor today.
But he conceded: "I'm there by means which are not a direct means of obtaining a council property."
He said he was not squatting and had a right to a home.
"I'm a sitting tenant in the property with a right to go before the court and say `This is the situation', and one hopes they would listen."
Clr Christine Smith, of Kirkburton, said she found the situation outrageous.
"He's there illegally. This will cost the council, all in all, £400 to evict him.
"We have got to go and get a possession order then go down to court."
She feared Clr Walder's behaviour had brought the council into disrepute.
A council spokes- man confirmed that legal moves were being made to get vacant possession of the Dalton house.
