TURNCOAT Halesowen councillor Ken Turner, who ditched the Tory party, has now quit UKIP amid claims he was “bullied and intimidated” and subjected to a kangaroo court.

He and his councillor wife Hazel both resigned on Tuesday after refusing to tow the party line and pay a regular donation from their allowances into branch funds.

Instead, they wanted to pay into an elected members pit to cover campaign costs.

But Cllr Turner, who was leader of UKIP on Dudley Council, said the payment row was a “smokescreen” to his concerns about UKIP’s call for a referendum over a planning application to build a mosque in Hall Street, Dudley.

He said: “I am extremely embarrassed by UKIP’s lack of appreciation of council requirements and how council business is conducted.

“I cannot and will not impeach myself and my integrity by doing some of the actions they are asking to be taken.”

The outspoken member for Hayley Green and Cradley South said the call for a referendum would be an expensive waste of tax payers money and irrelevant to the planning process.

Cllr Turner claimed a meeting with UKIP officials on Tuesday at which he had been asked to agree to pay the contribution or resign, was a “kangaroo court”.

“They are amateurs, trying to bamboozle people,” he added.

But Halesowen and Dudley UKIP branch chairman Dean Perks accused Cllr Turner of “digging his heels in and refusing to budge” on the payment issue.

He said it was usual for councillors to pay a contribution to an elected members group and/or the local branch.

M Perks said: “The elected members agreed to pay to support the branch but Ken’s version of what was agreed was different and he wouldn’t budge.

He added: “It is always sad to lose members, never mind councillors, and it was nice when they came across to us.

“It’s a blow, as we’ve no leader now, but we are a team and if people don’t want to be part of a team and do things democratically, then it is not a sad loss.”

Cllr Turner admits it was his “folly and stupidity” to be lured into the UKIP camp after being enticed by the prospect of standing for Halesowen and Rowley Regis under their ticket in next year’s general election.

But the wannabe MP was overlooked and had to settle for being the fledgling party’s prospective parliamentary candidate in Walsall South, from which he has now also resigned.

He said the “right place” for him and his wife was as independents, and although Cllr Turner had already announced he will not seek re-election to Dudley Council next May, he is now considering standing as an independent candidate against sitting Tory MP James Morris in the general election.

The husband and wife team retreated to the independent benches after a fall out with the Conservatives in December 2013.

Cllr Hazel Turner will serve the ward as an independent until she is due for re-election in 2016 when she will stand down.