Fraud MEP Ordered to Repay £67,000

chikrodah · 22-12-2007, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Independent UKIP

Our lot should be asking questions and highlighting this, but on the basis of demonstrable evidence not an anonymous good authority. If it was them not you making public claims on such a basis which proved to be wrong that would be very damaging to the party credibility with the media and would be remorselessly condemned on this forum by persons similar to yourself who are somewhat critical of the party leadership. No such negative consequences result from your suggestion above if it were proved to be wrong.

Agreed. Let's have reference to the exact procedural rules that allow this, or detailed reference to paperwork that supports this. Otherwise, this is pure gossip.

It's an interesting judgement; nice to see that only one count (failure to notify a change of circumstances) out of 25 was quashed, and that only happened because, luckily for Mote, the law changed after his fraudulent activity started

chikrodah · 16-05-2008, 05:58 PM

From Mote's website, dated 17/04/2008:

Quote:

Portsmouth Crown Court yesterday made a series of rulings about my paying moneys back to the state after my case.

Portsmouth Crown Court yesterday made a series of rulings about my paying moneys back to the state after my case. It was an open court hearing but no-one else attended.

Perhaps because nobody else believes he's as important as he does?

Quote:

The government is still waging its vendetta. It is now threatening to put me and my family out on the street for the second time in 18 years.

Emotive and misleading. There is no vendetta; it took the DWP this long to get the man to court because he appears, IMHO, to have used every means possible to avoid a trial date. His children are grown up and have their own lives. His son has/had a business in London. His wife was (and still may be) a director in a family business.

Quote:

A repayment of £67,000 represents £22,000 more than I was found guilty of receiving unlawfully.

That will come as news to the attendees (judges, jury, tribunal members, legal teams et al) who heard the evidence in two hearings (civil and criminal), followed by two appeals, followed by a further judgement in Portsmouth Crown Court, that he defrauded the taxpayer, of £67,000 in benefits.

Quote:

It is also equal to some £200 a week over the seven years I was in receipt of benefits to support and house a family of four, later two. Although not unreasonable, it was less than the government's own poverty line at the time.

Disingenuous in the extreme. More than enough evidence has been put forward regarding his squirrelling away an amount almost equal to his benefit fraud, into a tax-haven savings account. Subscribers to a certain eurosceptic forum in 2002 may remember his impassioned plea on behalf of an un-named pensioner who was being threatened with having to repay benefits. He even mentioned Chichester DC in his post. 10/10 for chutzpah, 0/10 for ethics and morality.

Quote:

Now, despite having few assets and a mortgage, I have to pay it all back, and some.

The mortgage was worth, I believe, around £400k several years ago. It's possible, of course, that he's borrowed against the equity in the last few years. It's also possible that he's used his allowances to reduce the mortgage considerably. Added to which, bearing in mind that the judges involved appear to have had difficulty in believing they knew the full extent of Mote's finances, IMHO he's likely to have more tax-haven savings accounts hidden somewhere. Indeed, in Ashley Mote MEP : News, he seems to be upset about the EU ruling last year that transfers of more than £8k into a tax have account need to be declared to the taxman. The cynics amongst us might wonder if there's a personal interest here.

Quote:

The total is 160% of the money I am alleged to have received wrongly - such is the effect of money-laundering legislation when applied to cases like mine.

No, it's not. It's exactly the amount 5 courts have agreed he received wrongly.

Quote:

It also means that I will have wiped the slate clear, even before my appeals process has been completed.

Wonderful. So, by the sounds of it, he's having to pay it back in one lump sum? Bankruptcy hearings must be closing in, judging by the tone of his latest "personal statement".

The only place left to go to for an appeal is the House of Lords. So far, with 5 court appearances under his belt (not including any attended during the run up to the final trials) he claims to have cost the taxpayer £1 million. His own costs, if not funded by the taxpayer, must run into the hundreds of thousands of pounds by now.

This man gets, according to Factfile: MEP pay and perks - Times Online, nearly £62k per year as an MEP, paid for by the taxpayer aka the national treasury. He gets £148k staff allowance and £37,710 office allowance, at today's exchange rates. He also gets an attendance allowance of £222 per day and he's on 5 committees (mind you, he only ever bothers to attend two of those). His little jaunt to white supremacists in the USA will have cost the taxpayer; the EU gives him an allowance of £2300 for "other visits on parliamentary business".

Ashley Mote isn't poor; he isn't innocent, at least according to 5 court hearings; his family is not going to get thrown out on the streets.

He has been convicted for fraud and, IMHO, should never have got through UKIP's selection process.

Aardvark · 16-05-2008, 09:19 PM

Methinks Mote protests too much. He has been found guilty by his peers, he has had 2 appeals heard already and has only one more shot at getting off - the House of Lords. Mote's lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank as they represent him at every turn.

Bett Nwar · 18-05-2008, 08:54 PM

Mote knew he was guilty all along. It's a pity he doesn't have to pay back the seven figure sum wasted on his prosecution and his sallies into the EU committees as he pretended to be immune from the English legal system.

chikrodah · 20-05-2008, 07:14 PM

Well, well, well...

Quote:

Taxpayers did not shell out on Mote

A war of words has broken out between a disgraced MEP and Chichester District Council after the politician questioned why so much money was spent to bring him to court.
Ashley Mote claimed the district council had spent more than £1m to bring the prosecution which saw him found guilty of 21 offences of fraudulently claiming more than £65,000 in benefits from the council and the government.

But the council has hit back, saying the court case had not cost Chichester's council tax payers a single penny because the case was brought by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Mote said: "Chichester's taxpayers have to ask themselves why their council decided to spend over £1m of public money on a five-week trial about an alleged wrongful benefit payment of some £45,000 over a period of seven years.

"They employed a top QC, supported at times by as many as nine advisors. It turned a simple allegation into 25 separate charges with 147 alleged justifications of guilt."

But a spokesman for the district council said it did not spend any money on the case.

It said it was 'disappointing' that the south-east MEP, who now lives in Hampshire, was making the claims.

"To suggest £1m of Chichester taxpayers' money has been spent on this case could not be further from the truth," he said.

"The prosecution was brought against Mr Mote by the Department for Work and Pensions, and included offences connected with benefits claimed from the district council.

"Both the district council and the DWP have a duty to protect the public purse and to make sure taxpayers do not suffer by people dishonestly claiming money they are not entitled to."

As previously reported by the Observer, Mote was found guilty of fraudulently claiming £31,421 in income support, £29,991 in housing benefit and £4,093 council tax relief between 1996 and 2002.

Mote, who at the time lived in Langley, had failed to declare his wife had a £12,000-a-year job and that he had interests in two companies. He received a nine-month jail sentence from Portsmouth Crown Court.

In a statement, he said: "I confirm that never ever would I seek to defraud the public purse.

"Nor did I intend to do so.

"Going to the benefits office at all was an agonising acknowledgement of at least temporary defeat.

"My only purpose – ever – was to get myself off benefit, not to sponge off the state."

A spokeswoman for the DWP said it could not comment on individual cases but said all cases of fraud are always dealt with in the same way following strict procedural guidelines.

Last Updated: 22 February 2008 1:27 PM
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16-05-2008, 09:19 PM	#13 (permalink)
Aardvark Moderator Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Oxonia Posts: 4,256	Methinks Mote protests too much. He has been found guilty by his peers, he has had 2 appeals heard already and has only one more shot at getting off - the House of Lords. Mote's lawyers are laughing all the way to the bank as they represent him at every turn. __________________ When in Woking do as the Wokes do. "I do not wish to form my opinions by thoughtlessly quoting others; I wish others to support their opinions by sensibly quoting me." Paul Wesson (Aardvark) 13th April 2008

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18-05-2008, 08:54 PM	#14 (permalink)
Bett Nwar Member Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 210	Mote knew he was guilty all along. It's a pity he doesn't have to pay back the seven figure sum wasted on his prosecution and his sallies into the EU committees as he pretended to be immune from the English legal system.