A Wiltshire town council was forced to take swift action this morning after its website was hacked and pornographic material uploaded.

Trowbridge Town Council’s IT department was alerted to the embarrassing issue after one of its pages was changed.

The council’s news-events page was filled with references to porn movies, intimate relationships, and messages left in Arabic, English and Romanian.

Lance Allan, the town council’s chief executive and Trowbridge town clerk, said the issue had been swiftly dealt with.

“I don’t know what happened but it has all been sorted first thing this morning,” Mr Allan said.

However, visitors are still able to access the page via a direct link.

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Trowbridge resident Paul Jubbie, who scrutinises the council, said he had tried to contact the mayor, Cllr Graham Hill, and deputy mayor, Cllr Stephen Cooper, about the issue.

“I tried to call the mayor and the deputy mayor but no-one responded. I don’t know whether they have blacklisted me,” he said.  

“It is concerning really. Anyone going in there to look for an event would have seen it.

“It just raises questions about their security and whether they need to look at  improving their security systems.”

Cllr Antonio Piazza also raised concerns after spotting the website page last night and emailed leading town council officers this morning.

"I was looking back at some of the old posts (researching draft budget 2023-24), clicked on the last page on the news section of the Trowbridge Town Council website, and was shocked to discover that there are links to pornographic material on the news section of the website.

"I am now extremely concerned because our partners and stakeholders (such as schools, parents, and children) may visit our website that currently has harmful content on it that needs to be removed immediately. I am also concerned that a data breach has occurred as a result.

"I am not sure what the procedure is for this but can we please have an officer take down these posts down immediately."

Cllr Piazza also requested that officers survey the entire website to ensure there is no other pornographic material and look into who had posted the material.

He also called for a review to determine what the council can do to prevent this content from infiltrating its website in the future.

"It may be useful to have a report come to the next P&R meeting and then the next Full Council meeting but will look to the officers to advise on what to do next," he said.