• 27.10.2025

Gerard Woodhouse pleads guilty to harassment. “Jail him,” says his victim

Gerard Woodhouse. Photo: Harry Shukman/The Post

We report live from Liverpool Magistrates Court. Also, Reform rumblings in Widnes and Runcorn

Dear readers — a wintery welcome to your Monday briefing, and a happy Halloween! Yes, we may be jumping the gun a little on this one. But as Halloween falls on a Friday, we’re using today’s edition to make sure you get all the spooky news and top recommendations.

Tuck in, and prepare to be terrified by the latest councillor mishaps and MP blunders…

Catch up and coming up:

Last week, Abi teamed up with Post reader Helen Wilkie to reveal that Liverpool council erroneously published thousands of invoices — some of which falsely suggested local businesses and a council employee had received millions of pounds from the local authority. It got lots of you talking in the comments, with suggestions this was just the tip of the iceberg. Make sure you don’t miss out on that one – read it here.
Over the weekend Laurence took a trip to Kirkby to find out if the town’s recent swell of HMOs (houses of multiple occupation) are a crisis in themself, or just the thin end of a wedge of complaints residents have with Knowsley council. Read that here.

Additionally, we had something to celebrate on Sunday. Our editor and chief investigator Abi Whistance was nominated for a British Journalism Award for her work uncovering allegations of abuse made against Liverpool historian Laurence Westgaph. We’re immensely proud of her achievement, and you can read all about it below.

When TS Eliot wrote that April is the cruellest month, he was talking out of his wasteland. October has been the hardest The Post has had for many a year, with illnesses, absences and stories suddenly falling through due to external factors beyond our control. Nevertheless, we have continued to deliver exclusives, like Abi’s reporting into Liverpool council’s Excel foul-ups, and biting cultural journalism, such as Laurence’s now-viral clarion call for the city’s music scene.

Abi is even up for a British Journalism Award, an honour not yet borne out by our subscriptions so far. So this won’t be a season of misses and fallow fruitlessness (to misquote another poet), help us turn October into the success it’s deserved to be by signing up today for just £1 a week.

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The big story: Gerard Woodhouse: the former councillor pleads guilty to harassment

Top line: The former Liverpool councillor has pleaded guilty to harassment. What happens now?

Context: On Friday at Liverpool Magistrates Court, Gerard Woodhouse cut an anxious yet gaudy figure. Clad in a pink t-shirt and an oversized green parka and sporting gold rings on his fingers, the ex-councillor for County ward resembled the improbable occurrence of Tony Soprano attending Liverpool Pride. Our reporter Abi Whistance was there: after Woodhouse pleaded guilty to harassment and awaited the decision as to whether he would receive bail, he drummed his heavily gilded fingers nervously on the table in front of him, as if late for another appointment.

But how did this once formidable figure in local politics get to this point? Once, Woodhouse’s awards and newspaper clippings dominated the wall at his L6 Community Association — a food union, launderette, youth club, pensioners’ group, baby bank, school uniform service. His hub’s admirers included union giant Len McCluskey, local MPs Ian Byrne and Paula Barker, and then city mayor Joe Anderson; his benefactors the royal Duchies of Lancaster and Westminster. In 2021, the Echo bestowed the L6 centre with an award for “offering a lifeline to families in dire need”.

Gerard Woodhouse outside the L6 centre in 2022: Photo: The Post

The Post was one of the first to dissent from this cacophony of commendation, writing in 2022 that Woodhouse’s claims about the L6 project “deserve[d] proper scrutiny” and struggling to corroborate his statements over a four-mouth investigation. Also in 2022, Woodhouse was deselected from Labour after serving 12 years as a councillor. The following year, we broke the story that Woodhouse had been investigated for financial irregularities.

Now, he could serve up to 16 weeks in prison. But what was he accused of, and why has he pleaded guilty?

Last week, the court heard how Woodhouse sent cards in the post containing offensive terms, posted using counterfeit stamps, to Christine Banks, the chair of Liverpool City Council’s licensing committee. Woodhouse sent the anonymous cards between 2023, after he was deselected from Labour, and 2025, including “offensive slurs” including “Judas”, “scav” and “cunt”. Banks said they had a falling out when both she and Woodhouse were on the licensing committee.

After Banks received more cards that caused “alarm and distress” in July 2025, the cards were taken by police and forensically tested. Detectives discovered a fingerprint on one of the cards, and matched it to ones they had for Woodhouse when he was arrested over earlier, unrelated matters — prosecutor Helen Bell told the court Woodhouse had four previous convictions for 15 offences between 1995 and 2006. Woodhouse has admitted to sending the cards and pleaded guilty to harassment without violence.

Woodhouse shows us inside a freezer in his charity centre in 2022. Photo: The Post

Bottom line: Over the weekend, Christine Banks gave an interview to the BBC in which she said the cards she received from Woodhouse also contained references to her deceased adult daughter. "I had to keep it from my husband and children for two years,” Banks said. “I was running to get the post when it arrived to stop my grandkids opening them thinking they were birthday cards.”

Banks says that she thinks Woodhouse should see prison time: "I think he should go to jail for what he did," she told the BBC. At the Magistrates Court, the prosecutor said the fact that Woodhouse’s victim was a public servant aggravated the offence.

Meanwhile, defending him, Woodhouse’s solicitor Kevin Kelly said the ex-councillor had been experiencing a "long-term mental health condition that may have impacted his decisions at the time these offences occurred." Mr Woodhouse has been released on conditional bail and will be sentenced on 9th December.

Photo of the week

A beautiful shot of Albert Dock, capturing the autumnal sky. Photo taken by photographer George Griffin.

We’re always keen to feature photos from our readers — if you have a snap you’d like to share please email it to editor@livpost.co.uk for a chance to be featured in our Monday editions.

Your Post briefing

On the grapevine: former leader of Knowsley Council, Andy Moorhead, is considering standing for Reform at the next election. His name might sound familiar to Post readers — Moorhead held a number of positions in the Big Help empire up until its demise earlier this year. As Big Help Trading’s director, he had the undesirable task of letting nearly all the company's employees know they were being sacked in May this year — without pay for the work they’d done the month prior (read about that here). Now, after a disastrous year Moorhead appears to have set his sights on politics once more. He was spotted out with Reform canvassers earlier this month, and rumour has it he’s after the ward of Widnes and Halewood — where Reform are just 0.8 percentage points shy of victory, according to the latest poll.

And in yet more Reform news, Runcorn and Helsby MP Sarah Pochin has been dubbed a “racist” by health secretary Wes Streeting after she complained about adverts being "full of black people, full of Asian people" on TalkTV. Reform’s Pochin was elected back in May this year after Labour MP Mike Amesbury stood down from his role when he pleaded guilty to assaulting a constituent. She won the seat by just six votes — marking the smallest majority in a British by-election in modern times. Since her election she’s made a number of controversial remarks, including calling for the ban of the burqa and claiming Britain’s culture was “disappearing”. Since her appearance on TalkTV, Pochin has apologised and said her comments were “phrased poorly”. We want to talk to constituents and colleagues of Sarah Pochin for a story we’re working on. Email abi@livpost.co.uk.

Woolton Picture House will temporarily reopen in the run up to Christmas. Kevin Fearon, the new owner of the cinema, said it will open for 12 days during December, showing films complete with an interval where attendees can buy ice cream. Fearon exchanged contracts with the previous owner of Woolton Picture House in September this year, agreeing to purchase the building for £450,000. Before then, the cinema had been shut since the pandemic, with many questions from locals as to why fundraising efforts had not seen the cinema reopen (read our piece on the cinema here). "It is Liverpool's oldest surviving cinema so we don't want to lose that," Fearon told the BBC. He added that a combination of public donations, fundraising efforts and Heritage Lottery funding would help him realise his dream of reopening the cinema.

Post Picks

🎭On Saturday, Future Yard in Birkenhead hosts a night of gothic burlesque and drag to celebrate Halloween. Find out more details about Théâtre Des Vampires here.

🦇On Tuesday, Lancashire Wildlife Trust is running a bat walk at Lunt Meadows. The walk will start with an introduction to bats and the equipment used to detect them, before heading out on the reserve to see if the bats are out and about. Find out more here.

🎨On Thursday, Black Lodge Brewery Taproom in West Kirby is hosting a Halloween-themed collage event. All materials will be provided so just bring yourself and some inspiration. Find out more here.

📖On Saturday the Bluecoat hosts Dusking: a laid-back storytelling gathering to creatively explore the folklore of darkening skies and changing seasons. The workshop is devised and hosted by professional storyteller Stephen Harrop — find out more here.