Rude words removed from council website

Visitors to the Dacorum Borough Council’s website who searched for ‘Popular today’ items were greeted with a range of rude words.

Although we cannot reproduce the full text here, it included the phrase ‘council employees are’ followed by a list of insults.

Contrary to initial reports, a council spokesman said the words appeared due to “search abuse” and not hacking.

They told the Gazette: “We have changed the website to remove the offensive terms which appeared due to search abuse, not hacking, of ‘popular today’, a function which allows visitors to identify with popular or relevant searches.

“The Dacorum Borough Council website is secure and the search function remains unaffected.”