A district council has pleaded guilty to a health and safety breach after a leisure centre customer contracted Legionnaire's Disease.

Tendring DC was fined £27,000 by Colchester Magistrates' Court after a Health and Safety Executive investigation, launched in 2016, found problems with the council's systems for managing the risk of Legionella.

The court also imposed costs of £7,197 and a statutory victim surcharge of £170.

Tendring's chief executive Ian Davidson apologised to the individual who caught the disease and said the council's Legionella management systems had since been changed.

He said: ‘We deeply regret that standards fell below the high level that we hold ourselves to and we know which the public expect from us.'

‘At Tendring DC we take health and safety extremely seriously and we fully accept the fine issued by the court.

‘As the court heard, this will, of course, impact upon our budgets.

'However, through our long-term financial plan we will look to mitigate the knock-on effect on taxpayers and service users as best we can.'