The decision to drop Charlie the clown from a Bicester family fun day was no laughing matter, according to two town councillors.

Bicester Town Council's summer events working party axed Charlie from the Bicester in Bloom family fun day next month, because they said children were scared of clowns.

The decision hit the national headlines and angered some local people, who criticised the council for dropping Charlie after picking a circus theme for this year's town carnival.

And this week Labour town councillors John Hanna and Les Sibley attacked the way the decision was made, saying it was never ratified by the full council.

Mr Sibley told a meeting of the full town council on Monday: "There was a concern that a decision was actually made before it came before the environment committee for consideration.

"The decision sacking Charlie the clown had already been made a decision was made outside of the council's structure.

"Had it have come through here and a proper decision made, we might have saved a lot of emb- arrassment. I don't know about anyone else having tears, I certainly did when I read about it."

Fellow councillor John Hanna said: "We did get some really bad publicity for this council, not just through the local press, but also through the national press. It may seem to a lot of people as not very serious, but the way this council came out of it was not very good."

Conservative councillor Debbie Pickford said she regretted the bad pub- licity.

But she added: "I think the whole thing was taken out of context and out of all proportion it's one event. I know some children that are terrified of him. The working party has to make some sort of decisions otherwise they would never ever get things done on time."

Earlier this month Charlie the clown, aka Charlie Casey from East Sussex, said he was saddened by the decision.

He said he had many tricks to stop children being frightened of him and added that he took great pride in winning them over.