DOZENS of pages of information supplied to solicitor Richard Lingard were removed from the final report, released last week.

Mr Lingard, a former head of legal services at Guildford Borough Council, said in putting together the report, he considered some of the evidence to be “irrelevant” to the investigation; formed from personal opinions, possibly expressed by individuals “with an axe to grind”; uncorroborated; supplied in confidence; including personal information; or information which could be regarded as completely inaccurate.

He said: “Neither the interview statements nor my write-up containing those extracts were ever intended for public consumption. I did however supply it to Mr Heath.

“On the basis that he has reflected in his report, namely that the law allows those standing accused of the matters referred to in my report to respond, he supplied the three councillors with my draft provisional report to comment on and my writeup of the investigation.

“This was supplied to Cllrs Morrell, Rayment and Williams and I amended the provisional report to take account of comments submitted by and on behalf of the three councillors in those instances where I felt it appropriate to do so.”