A former councillor cleared of unethical behaviour has branded the body which heard the complaint a "kangaroo court".

Jenny Barnard-Langston, who was a councillor on Brighton and Hove City Council until last year, has launched a formal complaint against the Standards Board.

The board received an allegation from a constituent that Mrs Barnard-Langston did not follow the council's code of conduct.

A man claimed she did not assist him when he wanted to make a complaint against the authority.

He was seeking to become an independent visitor as part of a scheme which provides a befriending service for children who have no contact with their families.

The Standards Board has cleared Mrs Barnard-Langston of any wrongdoing but she said she was not even informed an allegation had been made. She was only notified of the issue when she received a letter on August 5 informing her it would not be pursued.

Mrs Barnard-Langston said: "I did not know he had complained about me. The first thing I heard was this letter.

"The Standards Board received the complaint, heard it and did not talk to me or contact me about the subject matter, even to see if there was anything I wanted to say.

"It's a kangaroo court. The least it could have done was to alert me it had received a complaint and asked if I had anything to say.

"I have still never even seen the complaint. I can only guess he was frustrated that he couldn't turn around a decision that stopped him doing something he wanted.

"The board will be sending a copy of the letter sent to me to the person making the allegation and yet I have not seen the allegation he made against me.

"In this case it was found I had not breached the code of conduct. However, had the outcome been different it would have been made without anything other than the allegation before the board."

In the letter sent to Mrs Barnard-Langston, the Standards Board admitted having a meeting about the complaint, during which it decided not to pursue the matter.

A spokeswoman for the Standards Board said it was policy not to inform members who were the subject of complaints, unless the allegation was investigated.

She added: "There are a variety of reasons we do not inform members who are the subject of a complaint.

"About 60 per cent of the complaints we receive are not referred over for investigation. It would cause distress to the people involved and may jeopardise any investigation if we were to send out letters to everybody involved in every allegation."