Ex-councillor in serious porn images probe

John Hawthorn also faces charges involving indecent and prohibited images of a child.

The retired city college lecturer was elected to Stony Stratford ward in 2010 and served on Milton Keynes Council for the next four years.

He is also is a former chairman of Abbey Hill Parish Council, where he was a member for 13 years.

Mr Hawthorn, who is married and lives on Two Mile Ash, has been summonsed to appear at Milton Keynes Magistrates’ Court later this month. Police say the summons involves two counts of making an indecent image or “pseudo” photograph of a child. There is also one count of possessing a prohibited image of a child.

The two counts relating to the possession of an “extreme” pornographic image portraying an act of intercourse/oral sex with an animal.

The charge describes the animal as “dead/alive”.

Mr Hawthorn came to Milton Keynes to lecture at the college engineering department in the mid 1980s.

He served as a Tory councillor until early 2014, when he suddenly resigned.

At the same time Mr Hawthorn resigned from Abbey Hill Parish Council, blaming “ill health”.

It is expected his case may be committed by the magistrates to a crown court for trial.

The penalty for possessing an indecent image of a child ranges from a community order to a prison term. The same applies to images of animals.