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Fiona Jones wins appeal

By LUCY MILLARD - 16-04-1999

The future of Newark's former MP Fiona Jones is to be decided by the High Court. 

Fiona Jones is expected to retake her House of Commons seat as MP for Newark after having her conviction for election fraud quashed during a day of high drama at the Court of Appeal yesterday.

Labour sources confirmed the party would not be issuing a writ for a by-election on May 6, and was not proposing to issue a writ for any other date.

"Following the decision by the Court of Appeal we are hopeful Fiona Jones will be reinstated very shortly as MP for Newark," said a party spokesman.

Mrs Jones's reinstatement is understood to be subject to completion of parliamentary procedures.

Her appeal against conviction for election fraud was upheld. The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Bingham, gave the ruling at 12.15pm.

Link to BBC interview with Fiona Jones. © BBC.

The conviction automatically cost her the Newark seat but her barrister Mr Roy Amlot QC said if that was quashed the consequence of vacating the seat must go as well.

Lord Bingham said it was an unprecedented case but said he could not see why it should be different from other appeals.

However, he did not want to trespass on anybody else's authority and said it could be necessary to give an opportunity for submissions to be made on it.

The three appeal court judges will give the full reasons for their judgment at a later date.

Outside the court Mrs Jones said it had been a very difficult time for her but she was looking forward to taking her seat in the House of Commons again.

"On a personal level I am very relieved it is over," she said. "I have had a very raw deal and have been very grateful for all the support from my family and constituents.

"Election law is very complex and I hope that nobody else goes through what I have."

The court also quashed the conviction on a similar charge of her agent for the 1997 General Election Mr Des Whicher.

Mr Whicher said it was the end of two years of hell for him.

He had not been able to stand for re-election to his seats on Newark and Sherwood district or Newark town councils because the date for nominations had passed. But he hoped that if a local government by-election came along he might be able to return to local politics.

Mrs Jones (42) of Church Road, Saxilby, and Mr Whicher (73) of George Street, Newark, were both convicted at Nottingham Crown Court on March 19 of making a false declaration of expenses for the 1997 General Election.

They said they spent £8,514.94 during the campaign - £395.76 within the legal limit. The prosecution said they had spent double the limit.

Mrs Jones's and Mr Whicher's appeal was heard by Lord Bingham and two senior judges, Mr Justice Moses and Mr Justice Penry-Davey.

The appeal started on Tuesday afternoon when Mr Amlot complained about the jury's direction in law from the trial judge and the interpretation of the 1983 Representation of the People Act under which Mrs Jones and Mr Whicher were charged.

Mr Amlot said the judge, Mr Justice Jowitt, should have told the jury the election expenses were confined to an expense incurred in the promotion of a candidate's personal candidacy.

The judge was wrong, he said, in the way he directed the jury that one way to promote the candidate's electoral prospects was to promote the party.

Mr Amlot said the relevant parts of the Act needed to be strictly interpreted. There was considerable doubt when it came to the part of the Act dealing with when an election began and candidates had widely differing views on what items of expenditure were election expenses.

He said: "We believe the situation is unsatisfactory and needs to be rectified.

"Everyone would welcome a declaration establishing certainty and predictability so candidates know where they are.

"It is a principle of legal policy that law should be certain and predictable."

On Wednesday Mr Amlot said the case had been opened by the prosecution on the basis of a massive overspend by the defendants.

By the end it had been reduced to office expenses and the use of a voter identification database. That bore no resemblance to the case opened by the crown.

"The defence were prejudiced," said Mr Amlot. "If the case left was the one presented in the first place the appellants could have applied for the case to have been dealt with by the Election Court under illegal practice.

"The whole course of events may have been very different. We may have been able to avoid a trial of this size and the publicity. The whole thing has been catastrophic for Mrs Jones."

He said the matter of the cost of creating the voter identification database and the cost of hiring a car for Mrs Jones should both have been withdrawn at the half-way stage of the trial when the defence had submitted there was no case to answer.

Mr Edward Fitzgerald QC, who represented Mr Whicher at the trial, said there had been a breach of natural justice.

The re-formulated case had been introduced by the judge at the 11th hour. He had concentrated his directions to the jury on what the figure should have been for the use of the office and database.

"If this had been the case from the start it could have been explored and examined with witnesses," he said.

"This is an unsafe conviction. The key thing that was left to the jury was not examined."

Mr Nigel Sweeney QC, for the crown, started his submission on Wednesday afternoon and continued yesterday using election cases dating back to the turn of the century to back up his complex legal arguments.

Mr Sweeney said the prosecution had concentrated its case on a global period of events rather than just election day.

The judge, he said, may have taken the view that he had given Mrs Jones and Mr Whicher the opportunity to deal with the cost of the voter identification database by asking about it himself during the trial.

 

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