Kerry McCarthy, the Labour MP who illegally revealed postal vote results on Twitter in April, has been given a police caution.
Labour’s “Twitter Tsar” and a qualified solicitor, has avoided a fine or a six month prison sentence for the offence. She deleted her original post after a few minutes, but not before it had been spread around the internet.
From the Guardian:
She boasted to thousands of followers that an early batch showed Labour receiving far more support in her constituency than the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats – providing figures to back up her claim.
But after a string of replies pointing out that it was against the law to disclose general election results before the final 6 May count, McCarthy removed the post, admitting she had been “thoughtless”.
Section 66 of the 1983 Representation of the People Act forbids “any statement relating to the way in which voters have voted at the election” before polls close.
The maximum punishment for breaking the law is six months imprisonment or a fine of £5,000. But it was disclosed today that the shadow Treasury minister had accepted a police caution.
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2 Comments
I don’t understand this case. Firstly, I don’t understand how an experienced politician can be “thoughtless” like this. Secondly, I don’t understand how McCarthy was merely given a caution. And lastly, I don’t understand what this means for the future of this offence – I can forsee plenty of occasions when a less-than-moral candidate / agent / campaigner might decide that it’s worth taking a caution for the electoral advantage of spreading this information.
At the risk of being whinging and priggish, I really hate that this sort of offence is treated so lightly. I have reported a case where another party has printed and distributed leaflets with the Lib Dem imprint. But the nice detective who took my statement said it wasn’t high priority as it was “only imprint law”. I believe the same team committed many other minor electoral infringements over that and 3 other general elections and plenty more local elections. On another occasion, another party was bang to rights on some pretty substantial postal ballot fraud. I believe that the police had ample evidence – down to fingerprints. Yet it was deemed “not in the public interest” to prosecute.
Each time they get away with these minor infringements, and each time they are encouraged to get dirtier and dirtier.
I do not discount there being some dodgy Lib Dems out there – it’s a big party – but I have not seen it, or I would have taken action. I think that this sort of thing really does need to be stamped on,
Experienced politicians can be thoughtless, reckless in the pursuit of winning an election.
However, regarding the police you have an uphill struggle. Firstly you have to convince the police a crime has been committed. Then the police have to convince the CPS that it’s in the “public interest” to prosecute.
Imprint offences have been prosecuted in the past, but what’s interesting is that the police and CPS (as well as DPP) tend to change their mind over whether to prosecute or not based on how high profile the case gets in the media.
The truth is all parties are told to “turn a blind eye” when it comes to electoral fraud and there are financial impediments in the system to even filing an election petition.
This means even when there is prima facie evidence that one of our party’s candidates have been beaten by another party’s candidate that has breached the law, the other party knows they’re going to get away with it and be paid a councillor or MP’s salary for the next 4/5 years.
Have you seen how much it costs just to file an election petition for a local or general election?
The truth is the law sees it as so serious, that the decision regarding imprints (during an election) is not only a breach of the Representation of the People’s Act and PPERA 2000, but from what I remember it’s a decision that needs to be referred to either (or both) of the CPS or DPP.
The truth is regarding imprints is any politician can rely on the defence of:-
a) printing error or
b) blame it on the agent (who’s generally the one who does the artwork)
The only alternative you have is launching your own private prosecution in the Magistrate’s Court. Good luck with that as if it fails and they use (successfully) a statutory defence, you become liable for their legal costs.