Leader Cllr George Finch is to challenge the findings around his alleged breach of Warwickshire County Council's code of conduct this week – but the hearing could be held in secret.

External solicitor Claire Ward found that Cllr Finch had breached the standards that all councillors sign up to by publicising comments that "could have jeopardised" a child rape case.

Ms Ward's report was then considered by the council's monitoring officer Sarah Duxbury – the authority's most senior legal official – with Cllr Finch exercising his right to challenge her as-yet-unpublished recommendations.

It means that a sub-committee of three county councillors – Cllr John Waine, Cllr Yousef Dahmash and Cllr Richard Dickson – will meet on Wednesday (June 24) at 2pm at Shire Hall, Warwick.

It is not known whether Cllr Finch is accepting the verdict but not any proposed sanctions or whether he disagrees with the finding itself. He has been approached by the Local Democracy Reporting Service but has yet to indicate whether he intends to clarify his position.

The leader is also the subject of a second external investigation over complaints related to defamatory posts on social media about a political rival.

Any three or more elected members from the Audit and Standards Committee can be called up to hear cases where a councillor disagrees with a code of conduct outcome. The constitution states that "where possible, the sub-committee will include representation from at least two of the political groups represented on the council".

The decision on who sits is taken by chief executive Monica Fogarty with one member from each of the three biggest political groups selected on this occasion, seemingly a nod to the political balance of the council.

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The agenda for Wednesday's hearing shows includes a motion to exclude the public and press once the chair has been appointed and any interests have been declared.

The council's constitution – its 265-page bible of rules, procedures and standards – gives councillors the scope to hear "the deliberations of a standards committee or sub-committee in reaching any finding on a matter referred" in private.

That decision is one to be voted on by three-strong sub-committee itself and while that call will include wider considerations of whether it is appropriate to discuss matters relating to any individual or that may identify an individual, the constitution also states that such information "is only exempt" if those considerations "outweigh the public interest in disclosing the information".

There are no public papers attached to the notice of the meeting and the Local Democracy Reporting Service is awaiting response from Warwickshire County Council on what the councillors have been or will be advised in relation to the hearing taking place in public.

As for the outcome, the constitution states that any party whip – political group pressure or command to vote a certain way – "shall not be applied in any situation where members are considering planning applications, appeals of any sort or acting as a tribunal".

The trio will consider the representations of the leader and come to a final judgement over whether he breached the code and what should happen next.

The terms of reference state that if the sub-committee finds there has been a breach of the code, it "may impose sanctions with the agreement of the member (councillor) concerned or make recommendations to council on the imposition of sanctions".

It means that if a breach is upheld and Cllr Finch does not agree with any sanctions, all 57 councillors could be asked to deliberate what the punishment should be.

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