Now 12 police forces hand Tory MP ‘fraud files’ to prosecutors
‘Reputations being trashed’
THE Tory election expenses scandal deepened last night as 12 police forces asked prosecutors to decide whether MPs should be charged over allegations of electoral fraud.
Up to two dozen MPs could lose their seats or even be sent to jail along with their election agents over claims they broke rules on campaign spending.
The Crown Prosecution Service has received files of evidence from 12 forces, with a further five still investigating.
Allegations centre on claims candidates in marginal seats wrongly declared the use of election battle buses and spending on hotels as national expenditure rather than local, for which there are tighter spending limits.
Party chiefs were last night struggling to contain a mutiny from MPs who accuse them of ‘casting them adrift’. Theresa May was confronted by angry backbenchers at a meeting of the 1922 executive committee on Monday night.
The CPS yesterday said it had been passed files from Avon and Somerset, Derbyshire, Cumbria, Devon and Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Greater Manchester, Lincolnshire, Metropolitan Police, Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, West Yorkshire and Staffordshire.
Prosecutors said the files, which relate to Tory MPs who won seats at the 2015 General Election, were ‘all under consideration’. They have until June to decide whether to charge anyone.
Both the CPS and police refused to name the MPs or agents under investigation. Derbyshire Police said it had sent two files to prosecutors. Investigations are still ongoing in Kent, Cheshire, Lancashire, the West Midlands and Warwickshire.
A spokesman for Warwickshire Police said ‘voluntary interviews have taken place with two individuals’ and their investigation was ‘nearing finalisation’.
On Tuesday it was revealed that Craig Mackinlay, who beat former Ukip leader Nigel Farage in South Thanet, was questioned under caution for six hours by Kent Police last week. Officers are deciding whether to send files to the CPS.
Essex, Sussex and Wiltshire Police held their own probes but said they would not take further action. Will Quince, the Tory MP for Colchester, said he had been quizzed by police in Essex investigating election expenses in January but has been told he would not face any charges. A separate investigation Electoralinto whether Commissionthe Tories broke election spending limits is also under way and is expected to report back in the next few weeks. Close aides to Mrs May were caught up in the row about South Thanet last night after Channel 4 News reported they had Stephen campaigned Parkinson, in her the political seat. secretary, and Chris Brannigan, director of government relations at the Cabinet Office, were named in a cache of secret emails.
The broadcaster has already claimed it had seen documents that suggest the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Nick Timothy, played a central role in the battle to keep Mr Farage out of Parliament. None of the aides was responsible for how local spending was declared, and none is accused of any wrongdoing.
One of the Tory MPs embroiled in chiefsthe scandalof ‘cockinghas accusedup’ and partythen ‘castingIn an them angry adrift’. email to party chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin, Lincoln MP Karl McCartney said he and his colleagues feel they have been ‘left to fend for themselves’. He wrote: ‘ At what stage do you think you (the Party) might inform us that another media s***storm is coming? We didn’t create this mess, the clever d***s at CCHQ [Conservative Campaign Headquarters] did, and I don’t see their professional reputations being trashed in the media much.’ In the message leaked to Sky News, he added: ‘ The initial cock-ups, “strategy” and ineptitude with regard to this issue… need to stop.’ A Conservative Party spokesman said: ‘We are co-operating with the ongoing investigations.’