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Honest mistakes were made

By LUCY MILLARD - 19/03/1999

Newark MP Mrs Fiona Jones and her agent, Mr Des Whicher, did their best to complete an honest election expense return, the jury was told on Tuesday. 

Mr Roy Almot QC, representing Mrs Jones, said the area of election expenses was not an easy one.

He said when the time came for Mrs Jones and Mr Whicher to complete the return they did their best to get it right.

Said Mr Amlot: "They made some small mistakes which Mrs Jones has owned up to."

Mr Amlot said the Crown had said they had tried to hide the donations from Caledonian Mining. That was nonsense.

"Everything they did was obvious to members of the constituency Labour party who were interested in their campaign," he said.

Mr Amlot said one of the main issues in the case was the voter identification system.

It was a long-term process, he said. The trouble with the system was that Newark had lagged behind and so telephonists had to be brought in."

"I say that any reasonable person would be entitled to say this is a capital asset, built up over the years," he said.

He said the system was used on election day and this was reflected in the return. It was included in the £500 allowed for the use of the Newark and Retford offices and equipment.

Mr Amlot said the Conservative return had included the use of a computer for 30 hours at £1.75 an hour. They had also put down a notional cost of £50 a week for the use of the Conservative offices on London Road.

"Why should it be any different for the Paxton's Court office?" he asked.

"Mrs Jones and Mr Whicher decided an appropriate sum was £350."

The office only became a campaign headquarters once Mrs Jones had been adopted as the candidate in March.

He said the Liberal Democrat candidate, Mr Peter Harris, received telephone calls and packages and it was too difficult for him to resist doing something about it. He went to the Advertiser.

Mr Amlot said the court had heard evidence of a Newark faction operating in the party.

He said Mrs Gill Dawn had accepted she was probably on a list of people in the faction and said he strongly recommended that they should treat her evidence with care.

Mr Amlot said the Crown could not divorce itself from the contention that everything paid from the election account was used for the election.

Mr Edward Fitzgerald QC, representing Mr Whicher, said the issue over the use of hire cars had been abandoned on the judge's direction.

"This case is not just littered with abandoned vehicles but abandoned allegations," he said.

He said the Crown had opened the case by claiming there had been a gross under-declaration on the election return running to thousands of pounds and had sought to prove that by producing a schedule which, he said, included everything from the trivial to the irrelevant.

He said witness after witness had spoken about how they regarded the Paxton's Court office as a constituency asset.

The voter identification system, likewise, was a constituency asset.

Mr Fitzgerald said it had been accepted that the cars used by Mrs Jones and Mr Whicher were no longer an issue. He pointed out that the Crown had months of research and could not get it right. It showed it was not clear cut what was an expense.

He said the only thing left was the allegation that they deliberately acted dishonestly. Here they fell back on the evidence of Mrs Gill Dawn and Mrs Doreen Westmoreland.

Said Mr Fitzgerald: "I suggest it is clear they have invented conversations that never took place after meetings which never happened."

Mr Fitzgerald said the offence required deliberate dishonestly. They had to know they should be declaring something or putting something on the return that they knew was false.

He said that case had not been made out.

Mr Fitzgerald said it was unsafe and absurd to say that everything paid from the account should be treated as an election expense.

He said there was no evidence to suggest that if there were mistakes that they were not honest ones.

Said Mr Fitzgerald: "At the end of the day all the money was spent in valid constituency activities."

 

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