Convictions upheld in Election Fraud
03/12/2009
On 28th October 2009, Charles Miskin QC and Gareth Branston successfully resisted efforts by two defendants convicted of election fraud to overturn their convictions in the Court of Appeal. The hearing followed the successful prosecution by these two counsel earlier in 2009 on behalf of the Special Crime Division of the CPS. The case itself arose from widespread election fraud in Slough during the local elections of 2007.
The Tory candidate in that election, Eshaq Khan, together with Mahboob Khan and a team of supporters, took part in a concerted effort to “stuff” the electoral roll with false names and then to cast, on behalf of these ghosts, several hundred votes, thereby securing the election for the Conservatives. When the Labour Party petitioned the High Court to overturn this result, Eshaq Khan and his team exacerbated their criminality by creating false documents and false statements in order to try and prove the veracity of the ghost votes. They also told lies on oath in the High Court hearing.
Late on in criminal proceedings, Eshaq Khan pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the returning officer and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Mahboob Khan was found guilty after a six-week trial in Reading Crown Court of those same conspiracies and also an offence of perjury. Four other men were also convicted of similar offences.
Accepting the prosecution arguments on all points and dismissing the appeals of Eshaq Khan and Mahboob Khan, the Court of Appeal described the appellants’ submissions as “unsupportable” and “dependent upon a confusion”. Giving the judgment of the Court, the Lord Chief Justice also made a number of observations about the serious view which the Court took of these cases, commenting that frauds such as this one undermined the heart of the democratic process and therefore demanded severe punishment.
This case follows a number of other high profile cases of election fraud in Peterborough, Bradford and Birmingham. However, this case appears to be the first in which efforts have been made by the conspirators to lie and cover up their wrongdoing during an election petition in the High Court.
Link to BBC news