A Sandbach town councillor has insisted he will not be apologising following allegations that he condoned racism.

Three activists from the local Black Lives Matter group addressed last Thursday's virtual meeting of the town council to "find out how much more this council can be doing to be actively anti-racist".

The campaigners have requested that Nub News only refer to them by their surnames.

Miss Unnithan said: "This includes taking direct action to address and respond to the actions over the summer of one of the town councillors, David Jack."

The controversy began when the local Black Lives Matter group joined hundreds of towns and cities across Europe and North America to protest the murder of George Floyd in the US.

Organisers of the protests claim to have been threatened with one organiser having their address published online by some members of a local Facebook group, formerly called the Sandbach Sarcastic Society, which Cllr David Jack was one of the administrators.

Some members allegedly posted where one of the organisers lives with another posting a picture of someone in a Klu Klux Klan uniform.

In a Facebook post in June, Cllr Jack maintained he "cannot and will not be held responsible for others language".

At last Thursday's meeting, Miss Unnithan quoted points from the town council's code of conduct, including points on equality and the relationship with the public.

She said: "I'm going to make an assumption that you all agree with those particular rules. And then I'm going to make another assumption that you agree that if those rules are broken by a town councillor, or in some way infringed, that some sort of action should be taken."

Fellow campaigner, Miss Grindley, told the meeting about the alleged incidents of racism and misogyny directed at the group.

"We observed the conduct expected of Sandbach town councillors has been broken in the following ways, racist posts within the Sandbach Conservative Facebook group, consistent issues of misogyny," she said.

When asked by Sandbach Nub News which post she was referring to on the Sandbach Conservatives Facebook page, Miss Grindley supplied a picture of a post shared by the page on 15 August about Victory in Japan Day along with a separate picture of a comment from a man who made a racist comment against Black and Asian people.

While the post is still on the page, the alleged comment is not visible, so Nub News could not verify the claim. No evidence was provided of racist posts published directly by the Sandbach Conservatives either.

Miss Grindley also told councillors: "In an article about our protests published by the Metro, David Jack suggests he is committed to being anti-racist. In reality, he has continued to support and condone racism and all the behaviour he has publicly condemned and is supposed to officially work against."

She went onto claim that the alleged behaviour continues on the group which has since been renamed and made private.

Miss Grindley criticised the town council's handling of the issue, saying that the outcome of the complaints about Cllr Jack was that he should take social media training.

Miss Sykes, also a local organiser of the Black Lives Matter protests, told the meeting that "many members of our community don't feel safe anymore living in Sandbach and that includes us three".

Miss Unnithan made a number of requests of councillors during the meeting, including that they state whether they individually support anti-racism and that the council formally support their activities in the town.

Chairing the meeting, Cllr Kathryn Flavell took a show of hands from councillors to allow them to indicate their backing of anti-racism "in the way [Miss Unnithan] outlined". Most visible members did so.

Miss Unnithan went on to say: "The third aspect we would like is for David Jack to issue a formal apology to us for allowing and participating in racist commentary."

On the criticism of the complaints process, Cllr Flavell said the issue had been elevated to be dealt with by the monitoring officer at Cheshire East Council.

In his response to the accusations later in the meeting, Cllr Jack said: "I would just like to say that during this whole thing of whatever they're protesting about, this has been a personal attack against myself. Someone posted an offensive picture about something; I wasn't online at the time, I wasn't party to it, I didn't comment on it.

"Yet this group have seen fit to put my address everywhere, to put my details everywhere, to put my photo everywhere and attach that with comments that I'm racist, that I need diversity training, that I need to learn about the community."

Cllr Jack denied saying or commenting on anything racist. He also claimed that Miss Unnithan released her own address as it was apparently printed on a letter she published online.

He accused Miss Unnithan and the other activists of mounting a "vindictive campaign" against him and alleged they were aligned with the Labour Party and the "extreme left".

Cllr Jack said: "It's not acceptable to keep going around, pointing the finger and calling people racist when there is absolutely no evidence. There will be no apology from me."

Cllr Sam Corcoran followed the remarks, saying he "would wish to publicly distance myself from what Cllr Jack has said".

Cllr Corcoran, who is the leader of Cheshire East Council, described Cllr Jack's comments as "shocking", before adding: "I do think that a sincere message has been put by [Miss] Unnithan and the Black Lives Matter Campaign. We should take it seriously and deal with it respectfully."

During the meeting, councillors agreed they would work on updating the town council's equality policy, in part due to the issues raised by the campaigners.