The newly elected Conservative mayor of Walsall has been suspended from the party by a racist post on her WhatsApp account.
Rose Martin claimed someone had hacked her account and posted the offensive image, which showed five black children looking at a white boy under the headline: “First day at school for a Ukrainian refugee in south London”.
Following an investigation by the National Conservative Party, Martin has been suspended for six months and has been ordered to attend diversity training just nine days after becoming mayor of the West Midlands city.
The image was uploaded in March, when Martin was deputy mayor, and was seen by residents who said they were “shocked and disgusted” by the message and filed an official complaint with the party, which launched an investigation.
At the time, Martin told the Local Democracy Information Service (LDRS) that his account had been hacked and that he had reported the matter to the police. “I was involved and I reported it to the police,” he said.
The suspension does not prevent Martin from continuing in the civic role of mayor, for which she was elected on May 23 in a ceremony at the Walsall Council House. Martin, who was first elected as a councilor in 2003, will be able to continue as an independent representative in the Pelsall district for the next six months until she can apply to rejoin the Conservative Party.
On Wednesday night, Martin claimed she had been hacked and said she would appeal against the suspension.
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Walsall Labor leader Aftab Nawaz said his party could not support Martin’s nomination as mayor because of the problem.
Mike Bird, the Conservative leader of the Walsall council, told the LDRS that he was awaiting official notification from the national party about the outcome of his investigation. However, he confirmed that he had received a six-month suspension, had gone to diversity training and had been ordered to apologize to the party board.
The CEO and the town hall monitoring officer are also aware of the complaints.
The Guardian has approached the Conservative Party for comment.