Barking and Dagenham Council last night bestowed its highest honours on two of its citizens in recognition of decades of service.

Lesley Hawes, DABD charity founder, and Inder Singh Jamu, former councillor and the borough’s first Asian mayor, were both honoured at a ceremony in Barking Riverside.

Lesley Hawes, who was born in Dagenham, received the Honorary Freedom of the Borough award, the greatest award a council can give one of its citizens.

In 1995 Lesley worked with the council to form DABD, a charity which helps people of all ages live as independent a life as possible by offering services such as employment training for the young, benefits advice to parents and care for the elderly.

Her pioneering approach saw DABD become the borough’s first provider of employment training and one of the first to attract European funding.

She also helped set up Barking and Dagenham Progress Project, a charity that helps improve the lives of disabled children and young people in the borough.

She said: “You can take the girl out of Dagenham, but you can’t take the Dagenham out of the girl.

“Being brought up here gave me the strong work ethic people in Dagenham tend to have.”

“The Freedom” is the most prestigious award a local authority can give. Traditionally it afforded the recipient privileges such as tax exemption - although this is no longer the case.

The night’s other winner, former councillor and mayor Inder Singh Jamu, was made a Freeman in 2009.

However the council managed to find another honour to thrust upon the racial equality campaigner whose achievements include getting official recognition for people from the Indian sub-continent as being of a different race to black people.

Inder, who was made an Honorary Alderman, said: “The secret of my success is my wife and family. I am very proud to have received this award.”

Council leader Darren Rodwell said: “Our borough is a better place thanks to the remarkable contributions of these people.

“It is people like Lesley and Inder that make me proud of this borough and proud of what can be achieved. I’d like to thank them both for everything they have done in helping us get to where we are today.”