Ukip candidate accused of homophobia following alleged Facebook comments

The claims arrived less than 24 hours after the candidate's colleague Alan Harris faced similar accusations

a Ukip rosette (Carl Court/Getty Images)

Another Ukip candidate has become involved in controversy after pressure group Hope Not Hate posted screenshots alleging to show homophobic comments made on his Facebook page.

Kendrick 'Dickie' Bird, Ukip's prospective parliamentary candidate for Banbury, has been accused of referring to "some gay pr**k" he was sat opposite on a bus on 25 January 2013.

In another explicit post reported by the Oxford Mail he supposedly called former Liverpool and Chelsea footballer Fernando Torres "a gay boy like the rest".

While the posts did not appear on Bird's Facebook page at the time of writing, the below post was made on 21 January 2013 and followed by a comment made by someone else which said: "and at least its white!" [sic]

The claims arrived less than 24 hours after his party colleague Alan Harris faced similar accusations.

Harris, who is a prospective parliamentary candidate for Oxford West and Abingdon, said a "Facebook hack" had made homophobic and anti-Muslim comments which were allegedly posted on his personal account.

Hope Not Hate posted screenshots which read: "why cant i say in my own bloody country black is still a colour and gay are stilll queers." [sic]

(Hope Not Hate)

(Hope Not Hate)

Two Facebook pages linked to Harris were deleted and his Twitter account appeared to be taken down.

At the time Bird said of Harris: "I will be looking into this urgently and I think the party will as well.

"I am a close personal friend of Alan's and can say this is not language he uses."

The Independent has contacted Bird for a response. A Ukip spokeperson declined to comment.