DEPUTY mayor Bill Cavill pulled the plug on the entertainment at the mayoral ball on Friday after flashing lights upset him.

Coun Cavill, who is due to be Marlborough's Mayor next year, took the law into his own hands and unplugged the band's lighting system as it played at the £28-a-ticket dinner dance in the town hall.

The system was quickly reconnected and many of the 80 guests at the dinner dance, who included mayors from seven other Wiltshire towns, were unaware why the lights had temporarily stopped.

The Ramsbury-based band Premium Banana was in mid song when, to the surprise of guests sitting near Coun Cavill, he got up and strode across the stage and unplugged the lighting system. The deputy mayor of Devizes, Paula Winchcombe, who was attending the event with her husband Charles, saw the incident.

Like Coun Cavill, both Mr and Mrs Winchcombe are Kennet district councillors as well as town councillors.

Mrs Winchcombe said: "Bill Cavill was miffed about the band's revolving lights. I couldn't understand why but for some reason he did not like the lights.

"The revolving lights illuminated the dance floor and while I can understand people not being happy with strobe lights because they can upset some people, these just lit up the dance floor.

"He got a bit miffed and first he unplugged one lot of lights and then the other lot."

Mrs Winchcombe said that Marlborough Mayor Margaret Boulton was 'quite upset' by what happened.

Coun Cavill, who was elected onto the town council and Kennet four years ago, has lived in Marlborough with his wife Tricia since 1994.

He said he was enjoying the ball on Friday and after the meal had been looking forward to the dancing.

"Everything else was fine apart from the flashing lights," Coun Cavill said yesterday. He said the band's technicians ignored his requests to either turn the lights off or re-direct them.

Coun Cavill said lights did not normally cause him any problems.

"Wherever I turned on Friday they were flashing in my eyes. If I turned away from them they were reflecting in my specs," he said.

"I didn't want a scene so I asked them to direct the lights further up or onto the ceiling but they would not do it."

The band's technicians reconnected the lights and the event continued.

Coun Boulton declined to discuss what happened and no-one from Premium Banana was prepared to comment.