Bob Spink: Former Ukip and Conservative MP found guilty of electoral fraud

A former Ukip and Conservative MP has been found guilty of tricking elderly constituents into signing electoral forms backing local candidates.

Bob Spink, who served as Tory MP for Castle Point in Essex for five years before defecting to the pro-Brexit party in 2008, was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of four counts of submitting false signatures on nomination forms, a type of electoral fraud.

Spink, 69, of Benfleet in Essex, showed no emotion as the jury foreman returned majority verdicts on all four counts he faced.

He will be sentenced in the New Year.

James Parkin, 39, Ukip's election agent at the time, was found guilty of two counts of the same offence, and found not guilty of three. He had already admitted two counts.

Judge Ian Graham said: "These types of offences are taken very seriously."

Jurors heard Spink tricked "elderly and infirm" voters into signing the forms in April 2016, without making it clear what the documents were or which party he represented.

The court heard people in Spink's constituency signed forms believing they were petitions, and having no idea they were supporting the Ukip candidate in the Castle Point Borough Council elections.

Spink said everything was above board, that residents knew what they were signing, and that he only introduced the topic of the local elections once he had had gained their support for his campaign to become a police and crime commissioner (PCC).

None of the candidates included in Spink's deception won a seat on the council, although a handful finished runner-up, the court heard.

Outlining the case, prosecutor Tom Nicholson said: "Did he disarm voters by talk of Europe, police, his PCC nomination, the need to obtain 100 signatures, and their desire for more police on the streets?

"Did he properly inform them which party he was in fact representing?

"Did he use what we would suggest was a casual and misleading approach on the doorstep?

"You will hear from quite a number of witnesses whose evidence, taken together, suggests just that."

He added: "We suggest it is plain that people do not always read what they are asked to sign when canvassed on their doorstep, particularly when someone they know has given them a spiel or patter - I don't mean that in a derogatory way - about something quite different.

"This is particularly the case when the signatories may be of some age, and perhaps not the type to read such a form with scrupulous care - they maybe put an element of trust in him (Spink)."

Mr Nicholson said there was "no issue" with the 100 signatures obtained by Spink for him to stand as a candidate in the PCC election, during which the defendant was narrowly beaten by a Tory rival.

But he quoted local residents, whose signatures appeared on nomination forms apparently backing Parkin as a Ukip local election candidate, who said Spink and another man believed to be Parkin failed "in various ways to explain properly what they were asking residents to sign".

Another said Spink was canvassing for the PCC role and was unaware the form referred to the local elections, the court heard.

A third signatory said there was "no talk" about the local elections or any local candidate.

The court was told the police investigation into the Castle Point Borough Council elections began before polling day when a resident called Rupert Duke discovered his name had been added to a nomination form for a Ukip candidate called Lucy Parkin - who was a relative by marriage of the younger defendant, of Canvey Island in Essex.

Mr Duke told police he had never signed the form as he was a Tory voter "and would never have had anything to do with Ukip".

Jurors deliberated for 12 hours and 52 minutes before returning the verdicts on all counts at the end of the three-week trial.

Judge Graham adjourned the case for sentencing at Basildon Crown Court on January 5. Both men were released on bail.

Zoe Martin, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Bob Spink and James Parkin deliberately misled voters in order to fraudulently secure signatures on nomination forms.

"They did this through either lying or being deliberately vague with voters, or in James Parkin's case, by simply forging signatures by taking names from the electoral register.

"As a former MP, residents could recognise Spink and were more willing to engage with him. But he ultimately betrayed their trust by using their signatures for his own purposes that they had not been made aware of and had not agreed to.

"Evidence put forward by the CPS showed that Spink had misled voters when he canvassed them, resulting in the guilty verdicts returned by the jury."