Election man is jailed over fake names

A disgraced far-right activist has been jailed for seven months for cheating the election system.

English Democrats regional leader Steven Uncles submitted fraudulent nomination forms in the names of made-up people.

Among them was Anna Cleves – a play on the name of Henry VIII’S fourth wife – who was listed as a prospective English Democrats county councillor for Malling Central in 2013.

The nomination was signed by Adam West, also the name of the actor who played the fictitious crime-fighting superhero Batman on TV in the 1960s

At Maidstone Crown Court, prosecutor Mark Weekes said: “The result was that electors who chose their candidate on the basis they could trust the system wasted their vote.”

Uncles, 53, who has since resigned from the post, was convicted last month of seven charges of using a false instrument with intent and two of causing or permitting a false statement to be included in a nomination form.

Jailing him for seven months, Judge Philip Statman said: “These were acts of criminality that hit at the heart of the democratic process.”

Uncles, a candidate in the Kent police commissioner elections in 2012, was also disqualified from standing for office for five years and ordered to pay £1,000 prosecution costs.