F STANDS for much more than Farnham according to leader of Waverley Borough Council, David Harmer.

The Conservative councillor for Hindhead, who recently admitted he had been a little too liberal in his use of expletives, had a lot of explaining to do on Tuesday. Standing before a packed public gallery at a meeting of the full council, he defended his use of the "F word" during a recent row with Farnham man, Jez Hyman. A hot-under-the-collar Mr Harmer explained that he had used the un-Conservative language because he felt "threatened" by Mr Hyman.

The incident is reported to have taken place after a long meeting of the council's decision-making executive last month. After becoming involved in a heated discussion with Mr Hyman, Mr Harmer is reported to have stated: "Farnham has f***** Hindhead for 30 years".

A more subdued Mr Harmer told this week's meeting that the term had been "the only one that he was able to think of" in the circumstances. He claimed that after the executive meeting, Mr Hyman had approached him in the lobby where he "launched into a tirade" about Hickley's Corner, Farnham. Claiming that the situation had escalated to such an extent that Mr Hyman had allegedly become aggressive and abusive, Mr Harmer said his training to deal with difficult members of the public came into its own.

Mr Harmer explained: "I have received guidance that in situations like that you should talk.

"I took the opportunity to make the point that Waverley towns have been given resources at the expense of Waverley villages - I kept on talking and struggled for words that I thought could adequately describe how these villages have acquiesced to the towns."

"The only term that I could think of was the one that I used. But I would not use that word under normal circumstances and I very much regret if I have caused upset to the council."

After this week's statement from Mr Harmer a Waverley spokesman told The Herald that the council was unable to comment.

Responding to news of the apology, Jez Hyman said he thought it was "probably prompted" by the fact that he had lodged a written complaint about the incident to the Standards Board for England, which governs councillors' behaviour.

Asked whether he was, "aggressive and abusive", he said: "When I'm with some of those people I can take an aggressive stance, I won't deny that, but it's all in the eye of the beholder.

"I don't think I would have behaved like that because I was only a few feet away from Gordon Harris, the president of the Farnham Society, who's a very quiet man.

"I asked a few questions. It was more of a Paxman-style questioning, but Paxman doesn't swear and often he gets some unexpected answers.

"We have to try to keep our kids from swearing and it's not good when we have the leader of the council behaving like that."