Tory MP Craig Mackinlay overspent on the 2015 general election campaign to beat then-UKIP leader Nigel Farage in the South Thanet seat, the prosecution at Southwark Crown Court has claimed.
The 52-year-old is accused, alongside his election agent Nathan Gray, 29, of submitting false expenditure declarations, while party activist Marion Little, 63, is accused of encouraging or assisting an offence, reports the BBC.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Aftab Jafferjee said: “Nigel Farage indicated he would step down as UKIP leader if he failed to win South Thanet, so it was clear this was not going to be any ordinary election campaign.”
Mr Jafferjee added that the Tory Party has put in extra resources to win the east Kent seat in reaction to the rise of popularity of UKIP, saying: “It was the campaign that could see off Nigel Farage’s Parliamentary ambitions forever.”
The court heard that Mackinlay and Gray filed expenditure for the long campaign of below the limit at £32,661 and for the short campaign, just under the limit at £14,833, with the prosecution alleging these figures were false.
“It is the prosecution’s case that neither of these declarations as to expenditure – the long return figure of just over £32,000 and the short return figure of just under £15,000 – were true, and by some considerable margin,” Mr Jafferjee told jurors.
“Each of these three defendants were complicit in advancing those false declarations.”
The then-Tory candidate won the seat by 2,800 votes in an electorate of 70,000 on May 7th, 2015.
The trial will continue until December.