Croydon Central

[JohnLoony]

Yesterday there was an article in the Croydon Guardian saying that Gavin Barwell MP (Croydon Central) and Richard Ottaway MP (Croydon South) inadvertenly signed erroneous election expenses because their agent, Ian Parker, mistakenly forgot to include two relatively minor items (a deposit of £500 for a printer in advance of printing loads of leaflets, and notional expenditure for using campaign headquarters).  As a result, they will have to apply to the High Court for relief (in other words, they have to go to court to ask to be let off on the grounds that they made a mistake rather than because they were deliberately naughty).

This morning I received in the post a package of a copy of dozens of pages of Gavin Barwell's declared election expenses, together with a load of legal stuff.  Technically, Ian Parker is the "claimant" (the person going to court to ask for relief), and the "defendants" are the Returning Officer and the nine other candidates in the constituency.

In practice all this means that I had to sign a bit of paper to say that I agree that he should be relieved, and send it back to the court.  (The alternative would have been to provide evidence to say why relief should not be given - for example if there was evidence of naughtiness or dishonesty).  I expect that quite a few of the other candidates won't even bother to reply or send back the forms, and that relief will be uncontested anyway.

All this happened apparently because some jobsworthy busybody from Channel 4 News spotted the error, and brought it to Ian Parker's attention last week.  The whole process of trawling through the expenses forms on the off-chance of finding errors must have taken hours of time for the journalists, and hundreds of pounds of solicitors' costs.

Nevertheless it's mildly exciting because I've never been a defendant in a case at the High Court before 

[Zoe]

Nevertheless it's mildly exciting because I've never been a defendant in a case at the High Court before 

Are you a defendant or an interested party?

[JohnLoony]

The official paperwork describes me as a defendant.  The Returning Officer is listed as the first defendant, and the nine other candidates are then listed (in order) as the 2nd to 10th defendants.  The covering letter from Ian Patrker's solicitor says

Dear Sir

High Court Claim [reference number]

We act on behalf of Ian Parker.  We include by way of service: [bla bla bla list of papers]
You are not being sued. [bla].  As an oposing candidate in the general election, you are legally entitled to be involved in that process, which is the only reason why you are named as a Defendant and we are writing to you. [bla bla bla]

Yours faithfully [etc]

The "Acknowledgment of Service" form has a number of options:

A. I do not intend to contest this claim
B. I intend to contest this claim (Give brief details of any different remedies you are seeking)
C. I intend to dispute the court's jurisdiction
D. I object to the claimant issuing under this procedure (My reasons for objecting are:)
E. I intend to rely on written evidence (My written evidence will be filed within 14 days [bla bla]).

I just ticked option A, signed it, and sent it back to the court.

[Crimson King]

I hope you copied it for framing

[Neil M]

I wonder how the Channel 4 person even knew about the £500 deposit- obviously it is common practice to do so as the printer can then buy in the paper etc- but what if the printer was mates with the agent and said "don't worry mate, we'll sort it out over a pint at the Black Bull" and didn't want a deposit? I assume Channel 4 contacted the printer first to make sure that wasn't the case.

[Zoe]

Interesting, I hope that you will continue to update us on any further happenings.

[JohnLoony]

I wonder how the Channel 4 person even knew about the £500 deposit

According to Ian Parker's statement, it was listed as a credit in the printer's invoice and was one item in a long list - so it was overlooked.  The original deposit was paid in December 2009 (i.e. outside the "Long period" for election expenses) so he might have not realised it wasn't included in the total amount (which was c. £4k).