Political

Ukip Parliamentary candidate convicted of electoral fraud

Former Ukip Parliamentary candidate Matthew Smith has been convicted after admitting one charge of forging signatures on nomination paperwork for local elections:

Under election rules, all candidates standing as councillors need to have 10 nominations.

The court heard seven out of the eight forms submitted by UKIP contained forged signatures.

Prosecutor Brett Weaver said: “Hand-writing analysis found this form did not contain any correct signatures and the expert found some similarities between Mr Smith’s writing and some of the signatures, including that of his grandmother.”

After originally being charged, he stayed on as Ukip’s Parliamentary candidate for a further four months, claiming “I am innocent of all charges“. After eventually quitting as Parliamentary candidate he went through a first trial which cleared him of some charges but sent others for a retrial.

He had previously been in the news over allegations of confidential Conservative Party data to Labour.

Footnote: this reminds me of the case of the Labour person who was only fined in 2007 for forging nomination paperwork. In their case a mitigating factor was how they then went round warning people not to vote for themselves.

 

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