IT was supposed to be a normal night out with friends.

But when Dave Broughton entered The Litten Tree pub, he ended up bringing the council he serves into disrepute.

The Eastleigh borough councillor demanded to view admittance figures for the town centre watering hole after claiming it was overcrowded.

But after manager Simon Bancroft refused the request, a special constable suggested that Mr Broughton should leave, a committee heard.

Now the Lib Dem has been forced to apologise and must undergo training after he was found to have breached a code of conduct.

The member for Eastleigh South is alleged to have told Mr Bancroft: “I have good friends on the licensing panel and I’m going to see that you have your licence revoked.”

Mr Broughton has denied he said this and maintains he had good intentions – believing the High Street pub was overcrowded.

The standards sub-committee at Eastleigh Borough Council heard that Mr Broughton had been working on the door at the Railway Club, where he is a committee member, on May 1. During the evening he had consumed “no more than five pints”.

Afterwards, at around 12.30am, he and a group of friends entered The Litten Tree.

After finding some space near the door, he complained that he had been “knocked and jostled at least four times” while at the bar.

He became involved in a conversation with a doorman about whether the pub was over capacity and asked to see admission figures – a request Mr Bancroft refused.

Special constable Dan Brennan suggested that Mr Broughton leave as he felt he was becoming “repetitive” in his demands for the statistics.

The officer said he recalled that Mr Broughton’s daughter, who was in the pub at the time, had left the building in tears.

A report into the saga stated that the councillor, who was elected in 2008, did not feel he had breached the council’s code of conduct in any way, claiming he was merely concerned for the safety of those in the pub.

But the committee ruled he had failed to treat others with respect and had brought his role and the council itself into disrepute.

Suggestions that bullying was involved, and that he used his position improperly, were dropped.

Jon Brown, the council’s assistant head of legal and democratic services, said that it was “largely a case of one word or account over the other”. He also found that the pub’s capacity had not been exceeded.