Tories’ bid to sink fraud inquiry into election spending
A TORY MP and his agent will today mount an extraordinary legal bid to block a police inquiry into allegations of electoral misconduct that were raised by a Daily Mail investigation.
Craig Mackinlay, who defeated Ukip leader Nigel Farage in Thanet South last May, will attempt to stop Kent Police being given more time to look at possible criminal acts.
The force last week applied for an extension to the 12-month statutory limit for investigating potential breaches of the Representation of the People Act in last year’s General Election – offences that could carry a jail term.
A joint investigation by this newspaper and Channel 4 News had shown the cost of dozens of hotel rooms used by Tory officials and activists in the constituency had not been declared on Mr Mackinlay’s spending returns, but on the party’s national spending returns instead.
Each candidate has a legal limit for expenditure and their agent is also legally responsible for signing off election returns.
The MP and agent Nathan Gray were represented last week at a closed hearing in Folkestone by James Laddie QC, a barrister from Matrix Chambers in London. The hearing was adjourned until today when Kent Police will again apply for an extension.
The Mail understands Mr Laddie will argue there has been undue delay in the investigation
‘Part of national expenses’
and there are no exceptional circumstances to justify extension.
The Mail and Channel 4 News are instructing a barrister who will argue that, in the public interest, today’s hearing should take place in open court. Mr Mackinlay has declined opportu- nities to comment to the Mail.
Mr Gray – a prodigious user of social media who has posted on Twitter a picture of himself outside No 10 – has also declined to discuss almost 100 nights at the Royal Harbour Hotel in Ramsgate which the Tories booked during his campaign, nor other rooms that failed to appear on the candidate spending returns.
Last week David Cameron publicly conceded for the first time that his party may have ‘misdeclared’ or ‘left out’ vital General Election expenses.
However, it is unclear whether it was a calamitous ‘administrative error’ – the party’s excuse – or something more serious.
The Mail and Channel 4 initially revealed how tens of thousands of pounds of hotel accommodation for officials and activists had gone undeclared as local candidate expenditure in three crucial by- elections in 2014 and the Thanet South fight last year.
Since then, our investigations have uncovered a further 29 key marginal constituencies in the General Election in which some £38,000 of accommodation for visiting Tory ‘ Battlebus’ activists went undeclared.
Information for constituency parties said the Battlebus ‘had the full financial, organisational and practical support’ of Tory campaign HQ, as well as ‘the personal sponsorship of the party chairman, Grant Shapps… and [chief fundraiser] Lord Feldman’.
Twelve forces have sought or indicated they will seek an extension to the statutory limit, with ten of them already investigating.
Last month minister Anna Soubry sought to shift blame to campaign HQ. In a blog she wrote: ‘ The Conservative Party made it very clear to me and my agent, Cllr Richard Jackson, that the cost of the Battle Bus trip to Broxtowe was part of the national expenses and did not form part of my local expenses.’