A COUNCIL says it has not retained the services of a staff investigator who posted a series of expletive messages on his personal social media account – including one which branded the Labour leadership ‘arrogant b******s’ and another which claimed an airline ‘couldn’t organise an orgy in a brothel’.

Steve Thursby, 55, was hired as a contractor by Slough Borough Council to conduct investigations into staff on behalf of interim monitoring officer, Linda Walker.

He has been paid almost £9,000 since November for his work - in instalments of £450, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request revealed.

But the authority’s attention was recently drawn to his personal Twitter account, openly viewable online, where strong opinions were expressed about subjects including Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and airline, EasyJet.

One tweet on May 5 said: “Corbyn and his band of illiberal left wing look f****d.These arrogrant b******s are completely out of touch with the common man.” Another on April 30 said that EasyJet were ‘f*****g s***e’ and ‘couldn’t organise an orgy in a brothel’.

In an FOI response about the tweets last week, the council distanced itself from the contractor, who lives in Gateshead, saying: “The services of Steve Thursby have not been retained.”

A council spokesperson added this week: “Mr Thursby is not, and was not, an employee of the council. He was contracted to do a specific piece of work and that work is concluded. We are not prepared to discuss the matter further.”

Mr Thursby, who is semi-retired and a former award winning headteacher, told The Observer that he had no regrets about the messages which were his personal opinions and never posted on days when he had worked for the council. He reiterated that the work he had been tasked to do had come to an end - and his leaving the council had nothing to do with the tweets.

He added: “I feel free to express my opinions as I see fit.

“I was never employed by the council.

“I have nothing to hide about that and have no regrets.”

Mr Thursby was described as a ‘visionary of education’ in an Ofsted report after the special needs school, where he was previously headteacher, made massive improvements.