Hackers subjected parish councillors to a barrage of “distressing” pornography after infiltrating a virtual meeting, the LDRS can reveal.

Members of Hale Bank Parish Council were shocked when their Zoom call was interrupted by what council chair Kieran Reed called “indecent images of the worst possible kind”.

Cllr Reed said: “It was quite distressing, the hackers just took over control of the camera.”

Another member, Cllr John Anderton, added: “It was a shock to everyone.”

The meeting, held on the evening of May 14, was subsequently adjourned.

Hale Bank’s meeting is not the only Zoom call to have been taken over by hackers in a global trend known as “zoombombing”.

Earlier the same month, a group of 60 children in Plymouth were subjected to images of child abuse when a call organised by one of the city’s sports clubs was hacked.

Other victims include Angus Council, South Somerset Council and the South African parliament, and Zoom has since released security updates aimed at preventing the attacks.

Four days after the meeting, the parish clerk Julie Egan submitted her resignation, saying she had aimed to remain with the council until September but “recent events” had persuaded her to move this forward to the end of July.

It is not clear whether this refers to the meeting on May 14. She had originally wanted to resign at the end of March, but stayed on to help deal with the coronavirus crisis and respond to Halton’s local plan.

Her resignation letter added: “My workload is currently increasing beyond what is reasonably possible for me to do and I think you will benefit from having someone new to support you and take this community from strength to strength as I do not feel able to do this any longer.”

Ms Egan declined to comment further about her resignation.