A TOP Swindon council officer was the subject of racism during his bid to become leader of another authority.

A damning judgment has been handed down to a councillor in Monmouthshire because of bigotry he showed against Hitesh Patel, now Swindon’s head of business transformation.

Mr Patel was applying for the job of chief executive for Monmouthshire Council in Wales.

The job commanded a total payment package in excess of £119,000, and Mr Patel was down to the final three.

But during the interview process in 2009, Conservative councillor John Major was heard to say to colleagues: “Good candidate – shame he’s black”.

Now an investigation has ruled that “Councillor Major’s comments during the recruitment process were racist, discriminatory and inappropriate”.

Monmouthshire Labour councillor Armand Watts was part of a mock committee, carrying out a role play exercise as part of his job application.

He said: “Hitesh Patel, I think, was probably the strongest candidate we’d seen in the morning.

“He would have been interviewed by the leader and others. But part of it was going in front of this committee.

“They were tough questions. Immediately he came across very strongly. The consensus of the meeting was he was the strongest we’d seen.

“As he got up and left the room Coun Major turned to one of his colleagues and said: ‘good candidate, shame he’s black’.

“I was quite taken aback by that, to be honest. It was quite unacceptable. I challenged him over that. I don’t think he understood personally what he was saying.

“He wasn’t looking at him on merit. It was on the colour of his skin.”

He added that Coun Major was not even accurate in his bigotry.

He said: “Mr Patel isn’t even black, he’s Asian.”

Coun Major also failed to “show respect” to Mr Patel, and brought his council into disrepute, according to the Adjudication Panel for Wales.

The day after the remark was made, Mr Patel dropped out the job application process.

But in a statement to the Advertiser, Mr Patel, who now earns more than £130,000 as one of Swindon’s top-earning officers, said it had nothing to do with a racist remark.

“I believe the appointment process was entirely fair and I trust Monmouthshire County Council to have run it using the highest professional standards,” he said.

“My reason for withdrawing my application had nothing to do with the process, or any of the officers and councillors I came into contact with.”