A DEFIANT Housing president came out fighting yesterday over claims that he exaggerated damage done to a house by a States tenant.

Amid extraordinary scenes in the States Chamber Deputy Terry Le Main circulated photographs of the tenant’s property to support his view that she had left it ‘in an appalling mess’.At the same time his chief critic, Deputy Geoff Southern, was handing out pictures of the same property after the tenant had tidied up and redecorated.Deputy Le Main also read from a Health and Social Services inspection report which revealed that the house posed ‘a serious threat to the psychological and physical health’ of anyone in it.

Deputy Southern read from another by the Children’s Service which said that there was no evidence that the woman or her children had lived in it in that state and which found Deputy Le Main’s worst claims ‘unsubstantiated’.The affair has seen the Deputy and his committee being found in breach of the Data Protection Law for a second time after he allegedly disclosed the tenant’s rent arrears to her mother – an allegation he rejects.

He may also be sued for defamation by the tenant for describing her in an e-mail to States Members as an unfit parent.

And he faces another battle in the House after Deputy Southern lodged a vote of no confidence in his committee for breaching the Data Protection Law.