A PETITION signed by 354 people calling for the re-instatement of BNP councillor Terry Farr has been presented to Epping Forest Council.

The signatures were collected after the Loughton Alderton district councillor was suspended from council business for three months following a complaint to the Standards Board for England over a letter he had written to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality.

The petition, said to have been signed by members of the public from the district and elsewhere, said Mr Farr should be reinstated immediately adding: "He was democratically elected, he has broken no law or harmed anyone and was just exercising his freedom of speech by voicing an opinion."

Epping Forest Council, whose standards committee's adjudication sub-committee imposed the three-month suspension which ended this week, said it could do no more than note the petition as it had no powers to re-instate Mr Farr.

A report to full council added that the standards committee had no powers to change its ruling and the only way that could be done is if Mr Farr successfully appealed to the Standards Board for England's adjudication panel.

Grange Hill Liberal Democrat councillor Gavin Stollar asked for a copy of the petition when he asked how many of the signatories were from the Epping Forest district.