City leader also targeted in hate mail campaign

The leader of Liverpool City Council has indicated he believes he was among the victims of an anonymous hate mail campaign by an ex-party colleague.

Speaking on Radio Merseyside after Gerard Woodhouse was convicted of sending up to 100 distressing, anonymous letters to former Lord Mayor Christine Banks, Labour's Liam Robinson said he had passed the card he had received to party officials.

Robinson said he was aware that other people in the Labour group besides Banks had received such letters.

Woodhouse, 62, admitted harassing Banks between 2023 and 2025 and was given a community order and a restraining order.

Robinson told BBC Radio Merseyside presenter Tony Snell: "I think when I received it, I passed it on, as you would do.

"And because of the investigations that I knew were going on, I was of the mind that I thought I knew where it might have come from. I think that's the appropriate way of putting it."

Robinson said he had been made aware of "a number of concerns about [Woodhouse's] conduct and his behaviour" on becoming leader of the Labour group in November 2022.

He added: "Working with other people in the party we did investigate, we did take action, and he was removed as a Labour Party candidate and I'm glad we took that action at the end of the day, and I think with everything we've seen over the last couple of weeks and with… the sentencing yesterday, that very much vindicates that approach."

On Monday, ahead of Woodhouse being sentenced over the harassment of Banks, a BBC North West investigation revealed other people believed they had been targeted by Woodhouse before the abuse against Banks began in 2023.

But the Labour Party did not respond to questions about whether suspicions raised about him being behind poison pen letters had been a factor in his de-selection.

One of the people spoken to by the BBC investigation, Kay Davies, raised concerns that after Woodhouse returned from a Labour Party suspension over derogatory remarks he made about her in 2018 while they were both serving in the County ward, the council the Labour group endorsed his appointment as a governor of a school.

Ms Davies said she had been whipped into supporting the appointment, but refused.

Asked about whether that decision was the right one, Robinson said: "Look, it's difficult for me to talk about anything that pre-dated me as leader of the group. And I'm not trying to give excuses or slope off… because I was only made aware of the real detail around some of this stuff when I became leader of the group – as is normally the case, because these issues obviously are very sensitive and are obviously dealing with private information as well.

"Clearly, he was not someone that was fit to be an elected representative but, what happened prior to me becoming leader of the group, I genuinely can't comment [on]."

He added: "It's very clear that's not someone that was fit and proper to be an elected councillor and now, thankfully, he is facing the justice that was delivered."

Robinson said he was not aware of Woodhouse's previous convictions – revealed in court – relating to a benefit claim and an assault, dating from about five years before he became a councillor in 2010.

Sentencing Woodhouse, district judge James Clarke told him his crimes had been "persistent, wicked and abusive".

The court had heard Woodhouse had at times sent up to five cards a day to Banks, 75, and that they contained obscenities and threats.

An in victim impact statement read to the court, she described how she had had to hide them from her family for fear of them being distressed by them.

Earlier this year, police found forensic evidence on one of the cards, which led them to Woodhouse, who was arrested in August.

Banks told the court she believed his de-selection as a Labour candidate had been a factor in him targeting her.

His defence solicitor Kevin Kelly said: "You may wonder how a man who was highly respected in this community and dedicated to helping people out of poverty could have fallen so low."

Mr Kelly said Woodhouse had severe mental health problems and had perceived that there were factions in the Labour Party and that he was himself being victimised.

Woodhouse, of Mayfield Close in Anfield, was given a community order for 18 months and was made subject of an indefinite restraining order, banning him from phoning or emailing Mrs Banks, or sending her any more letters or cards.

On leaving court, he refused to answer questions about whether he had targeted anyone besides Banks.

Ms Davies. 46, who left Labour to became an independent then a Liberal Democrat and then left the council for good in 2021 – said the sentence had not been sufficient.

She said: "I thought he got a very lenient sentence, particularly when you heard the victim impact statement that was given to the court.

"There was far too much emphasis placed on the criminal here, Gerard Woodhouse, and not nearly enough emphasis on the damage he has done to Christine and her family."

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