An Onchan commissioner has been warned his behaviour towards certain staff at the local authority is ’coming close to harassment’.

But Chris Quirk describes as ’spurious’ the allegations made against him.

Mr Quirk faced an internal investigation into claims that he interfered with operational matters of the authority by canvassing the opinion of employees - which is against the board’s code of conduct.

On August 1, he received a letter from the commissioners’ lawyers, Callin Wild, stating that his conduct is not approved of by the board.

The letter concludes: ’We are further instructed to advise you that your behaviour towards certain members of staff employed by Onchan District Commissioners is coming close to harassment.

’If it continues, we anticipate receiving formal instructions to take steps in order to protect those employees without giving further notice to you.’

But Mr Quirk, of Wybourn Drive, Onchan, said: ’The whole inquiry had been contaminated with hearsay "evidence" and spurious allegations.

’The contents of the investigator’s report had been clearly compromised by personal attacks, with any evidential content being diluted to such an extent as to render it a worthless affront to natural justice.’

The investigation followed a formal complaint made against him by a manager.

Mr Quirk said he felt able to live with the findings of the inquiry - but only on the condition that some other allegations made against him by the manager during the investigation are either withdrawn or evidence produced to substantiate them.

It was alleged that he had parked outside the home of the manager on one occasion and intimidated him. The manager also alleged that he had been forced to move house.

Mr Quirk said he doesn’t recollect any occasion of parking outside the man’s home and claimed the house move took place as it was tied in with the job of the manager’s wife.

’Also mentioned is the manager’s concern about me being in a privileged position as a commissioner, and somehow taking my revenge out on him - if the matter was not serious and defamatory, it could be a classic comedy,’ said Mr Quirk.

The board met on July 18 to discuss Mr Quirk’s conduct and correspondence with individual commissioners and the chief executive over a wide range of staffing and connected matters.

It was resolved that the chairman and chief executive would not communicate with him orally or in writing in relation to past or ongoing staff matters unless raised at a board meeting, and even then only with the ’absolute discretion’ of the chairman.

But Mr Quirk said he was off-island receiving cancer treatment at the time - and the first he knew about the meeting was the lawyers’ letter.

He said the board having reservations about aspects of his conduct while carrying out his municipal duties was one thing, but members should not comment on matters relating to him as a private individual.

Mr Quirk said he had requested board chairman Robin Turton and commissioners’ clerk Linda Radcliffe to look further into the claims of harassment and intimidation, which he construed as a ’personal attack on my professional integrity’.

He said if Mr Turton wishes to condone the ’spurious allegations, he should do the honourable thing and resign his leadership’.

Mr Quirk was employed as a bylaw enforcement officer at Onchan until 2014 when he was dismissed for gross misconduct following an incident in which he was alleged to have produced a knife during a row with the head boatman at Onchan Park.

Mr Quirk said his experience then was like facing a ’kangaroo court’. But the decision to dismiss him was upheld by an employment tribunal.

Mr Quirk said the denied claims of intimidation dated from the period after he was dismissed and before he was elected a commissioner in 2016.