From Sky News:
No one will be charged over secret donations worth hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Labour Party from property developer David Abrahams.
Mr Abrahams gave Labour £650,000 through a series of associates to get round the law requiring political donors to be declared. The then General Secretary of the party Peter Watt resigned over the affair after it emerged he was aware of the arrangement...
Mr Abrahams also used a proxy to give money to Harriet Harman's deputy leadership campaign. The money was repaid in full when the true source of the cash was revealed.
My copy of PPERA is at home, so I can't give you chapter and verse, but the really important point here is not the lack of criminal charges, but the fact that such donations are forfeit and have to be handed over to El Comm; it is not enough merely to repay it to the original donor - see e.g. here.
Bastards.
Well, Fine, It Can Go To The Great Kennel In The Sky Then!
50 minutes ago
4 comments:
"Mr Abrahams also used a proxy to give money to Harriet Harman's deputy leadership campaign. "He's obviously a Tory mole then isn't he?
The question is how they manage to get away with it, under full public scrutiny.
PPERA doesn't say what you say it does - the Commission would have to go to Court to force forfeiture - and the standard of proof would be that applicable to civil proceedings. One would presume that the conclusion has already been reacehed that they couldn't achieve that level of proof.
58.—(1) This section applies to any donation received by a registered
donations made party—
by impermissible
or unidentifiable (a) which, by virtue of section 54(1)(a) or (b), the party are
donors. prohibited from accepting, but
(b) which has been accepted by the party.
(2) The court may, on an application made by the Commission, order
the forfeiture by the party of an amount equal to the value of the
donation.
(3) The standard of proof in proceedings on an application under this
section shall be that applicable to civil proceedings.
(4) An order may be made under this section whether or not
proceedings are brought against any person for an offence connected with
the donation.
(5) In this section “the court” means—
(a) in relation to England and Wales, a magistrates’ court;
(b) in relation to Scotland, the sheriff; and
(c) in relation to Northern Ireland, a court of summary jurisdiction;
and proceedings on an application under this section to the sheriff shall
be civil proceedings.
Anon, thanks, so the question is "Why didn't El Comm apply to the Court?".
You'd expect El Comm to apply to the Court for forfeiture as well as handing case over to CPS, because there must have been enough evidence for El Comm to ask CPS to at least consider criminal proceedings, subsection (4), especially seeing as BoP for higher for criminal than for civil matters...
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