Police report that a 51 year old man has been issued with a summons to appear at the Isle of Wight Magistrates Court on 1st November.
“He is accused under the Representation of the People Act 1983 of causing or permitting six false signatures on local government nomination papers between March and April 2013 for use in an Isle of Wight Council election.
“The summons to court follows an investigation by Isle of Wight CID with support and advice from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).”
As is the norm, Police do not name the person, but given the same age and the high profile of the case, it’s thought to be the UKIP candidate, Richard Wilkins.
OnTheWight broke the original story back in the middle of April, two weeks before the local elections, when IW Conservatives wrote to the UKIP candidate.
National attention
The story quickly hit National levels and Nigel Farrage wrote disparagingly to Alan Wells, Chair of the Isle of Wight Conservative Association, who had made the original claims.
The story took a further twist when, the Friday before the election, the County Press claimed to have found five more falsified signatures, in what was an unusual/rare piece of investigative reporting by them.
No resolution prior to election
Two days before the election, OnTheWight sought clarification from Island Police, if a prosecution was going to be carried out, they declined to confirm, but did say that a 51 year old man had voluntarily been interviewed, under caution, in connection with the case. He was not arrested.
At the end of June, on further prompting from OnTheWight, Police confirmed, “This matter is now in the hands of the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) in London who deal with such matters.“
Daily Telegraph apology
Richard Wilkins received an apology at the end of August from The Daily Telegraph after Rowena Mason, their then-political correspondent, had printed what she claimed were ‘quotes’ from him, but turned out to be someone impersonating him on a telephone call to her.
OnTheWight followed up this story seven times with Isle of Wight Police, but they have failed on all of those occasions to answer questions about this case.
Article edits: Headline changed to ‘UKIP electoral false signature allegations go to court’ from ‘UKIP electoral fraud allegations go to court’
