Imdad Hussain - Failure to disclose

Imdad Hussain - Labour

Bradford Councillor Imdad Hussain has been suspended for two years by the Labour Party after it found he failed to disclose he had been banned as a company director.

An investigation by the party at a national level has concluded he breached party rules.

Coun Hussain will not now be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate when his seat on Bradford Council comes up for re-election in 2014. The 42-year-old councillor continues to sit as an independent in the Heaton ward.

Coun Hussain was disqualified as a company director for seven years after his company went into liquidation last year. Earlier this year he was suspended by the Labour Party while national party officials began an investigation into his business dealings.

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Abdul Patel: Financial Irregularities

Abdul Patel (Labour)

Kirklees Council is investigating allegations about the running of a Muslim burial ground which is partly operated by a newly-elected Dewsbury councillor.

Coun Abdul Patel this week hit back at claims about the amounts paid by bereaved families to himself and former Batley councillor Ghulam Maniyar, who together run the Muslim Mosque Burial Committee.

It has been alleged that the men may have taken up to £1m from families during the 25 years they have leased the private plot near Dewsbury Cemetery.

It is also claimed the burial committee may have questions to answer about tax and accounts and that there is no record of where bodies are buried.

But Coun Patel – who won his Dewsbury East seat for Labour this year – says the allegations are untrue.

“I don’t think this will affect my work as a councillor at all,” he said.

“The community is behind me and I am not worried about the outcome of any investigation.”

Mr Maniyar – a Batley East Labour councillor until 2004 – also insists: “None of this is true. I won’t be losing any sleep.

“We have a lease on the land and pay to Kirklees Council. And we have a record of every grave. If we didn’t pay our rent the council would follow it up.

“There are more than 400 graves there and if we didn’t keep up records there would be an investigation.”

He said the committee was an open organisation, and payments for burials differed because some people wanted more than the basics which pushed up the cost.

“I have no fear about this at all,” said Mr Maniyar. “Our operation is an open book.”

Kirklees Council’s audit team has begun an investigation after a former councillor raised concerns about the committee.

A spokesman said: “The investigation is more than 50 per cent complete. So far there has been no police or tax authority involvement.

“The site in question is privately leased and Kirklees Council does not have statutory requirements regarding the registration and disposal of bodies at the site .”

But he said graves in the Muslim cemetery were not the council’s responsibility.

He added that there was nothing apparent at this stage to stop Coun Patel continuing as a councillor.

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John Holden: Still got a years salary after Fraud conviction

John Holden (Labour)

John Holden was convicted in July last year at the city’s sheriff court for falsely claiming more than £43,000 in Council Tax benefit and Income Support over a number of years.

He was formally sentenced to a year in prison on August 11 and Sheriff Ian Abercrombie described him as a liar and cheat.

Highland Council ceased paying the shamed 63-year-old’s £16,233 salary when he was led from the courtroom in handcuffs and it received his formal resignation four days later.

But Holden still received his councillor’s wage for several weeks, more than £1,000, after he was found guilty following a lengthy and high profile criminal trial.

The authority has published its list of councillor expenses for 2011/2012 and it emerged Holden, of Teal Avenue, Drakies, was paid £5,941 in salary from the start of the financial year in April.

The 63-year-old had initially refused to relinquish his Inverness South seat upon the guilty verdict in July.

The council could not hold a by-election until it received the resignation or a direction from the Highlands and Islands sheriff principal Sir Stephen Young that the seat was vacant and it had considered submitting a petition.

A council spokesman confirmed Holden – who was released after serving only three months of his one-year sentence – was paid his salary as normal for April, May, June and July until August 11.

A current court move by the Crown to recover the money from Holden obtained by fraud has been postponed until September because he has been diagnosed as being depressed and unfit to give his legal team instructions.

The authority’s combined salaries and expense bill for its 80 councillors was £1.725 million, £4,000 up from the previous year.

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Michael Mills: Fraud

Michael Mills (Tory)

Michael Mills, 64, a member of Holywell town council in Flintshire at the time, was caught after a tip-off. He used her pension card 110 times.

Mills said he had been in a "state of shock" after the death of his wife.

But magistrates said they were extremely serious offences, which he knew were wrong.

Mills admitted 14 fraud charges at an earlier hearing.

Defending solicitor Brian Cross said when Mills came to understand that what he had done in an emotional state was wrong, he did not have the courage to report it and buried his head in the sand.

"He is genuinely remorseful," Mr Cross told Flintshire magistrates, sitting in Mold.

Mills, a retired miner from Greenfield, told the court his "head just went" after the death in 2010 of his wife of 42 years, Brenda.

He added: "I was walking around - as if I had had a nervous breakdown for more than a couple of months."

There were emotional scenes when he was handcuffed and led away to the cells.

Prosecutor Tony Newnes said that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) received anonymous information that he was continuing to claim his dead wife's benefits.

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Michael Mills: Benefit Fraud

Michael Mills

Michael Mills, 64, a member of Holywell town council in Flintshire at the time, was caught following a tip-off.

Investigators found that his wife Brenda died in January 2010 but kept observations as he went to the Post Office to claim her benefits.

Mills admitted 14 fraud charges and will be sentenced at a later date.

Flintshire magistrates heard that the couple had been married 44 years but that Mrs Mills had been extremely ill for the last five years of her life, ending her days in hospital.


Prosecutor Henry Hills said that the Department of Work and Pensions received anonymous information that he was continuing to claim his dead wife's benefits.

Checks showed that retirement benefits of £40 a week were still being paid out in her name together with £402 a month disability living allowance - but checks with the registrar showed that she died on 23 January 2010.

Observations showed that he was attending the Greenfield sub post office weekly, and post office records showed he was still claiming benefits as a married man caring for a disabled wife, as well as her benefits.

After Mills was arrested in January this year, it also emerged that he had failed to disclose his miner's pension.

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Margaret Moran: Expenses Fraud

Morgan Moran (Tory)

Former Luton South MP Margaret Moran, who is accused of fiddling her parliamentary expenses, will not face a jury, a judge has decided.

Mr Justice Saunders said Ms Moran, 56, would not have to appear in court, after psychiatrist Philip Joseph said she was not fit to stand trial.

Dr Joseph said the ex-Labour MP was suffering from a depressive illness and had extreme anxiety and agitation.

Ms Moran did not attend the hearing at Lewes Crown Court.

Ms Moran, of Ivy Road, St Denys, Southampton, Hampshire, was described as weeping inconsolably when she appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court last year on 15 charges of false accounting and six of using a false instrument relating to expense claims totalling about £80,000.

It is alleged that Ms Moran, who stood down at the last election, "flipped" her designated second home, making claims for properties in London, Luton and Southampton.


Other allegations include that she dishonestly claimed £22,500 to repair dry rot at her Southampton home.

She is also accused of falsely claiming £14,805 for boiler repairs and work on her conservatory.

Dr Joseph told Lewes Crown Court the stress of the proceedings and allegations she was facing made it impossible for her to participate in court proceedings.

He said she had tried to harm herself and there was a risk of suicide.

He added that she felt feelings of abandonment by the Labour Party and shame that her career was over.

Mr Justice Saunders said: "Dr Joseph has attempted to discuss the allegations with her and is satisfied that she is not able to give proper instructions.

"He recorded her as saying 'I just want to plead guilty and be punished', but his view and my judgement is that is unlikely to have been a response reached after a proper consideration of the allegations and is simply an attempt to get the matter over with and assuage feelings of guilt which may relate to other matters."

He added that both sides were in broad agreement and all the experts agreed that Ms Moran is unfit to plead.

The case was adjourned to Southwark Crown Court on 15 November for a three-day hearing for a jury to determine whether the defendant committed the acts alleged by the prosecution.

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Ross Knowles: Embezzlement

Ross Knowles

Ross Knowles, a 42-year-old boss at Kent County Council, is alleged to have siphoned off funds meant for big energy companies - which he used to buy a Jaguar car and trips abroad.

The respected 'golden boy' of his sector cashed in invoices for as much as £400,000-a-time into his own personal account, a court was told.

A jury heard that British Gas and NPower were two of the companies he defrauded, before being caught out.

Knowles worked with the Local Authority South East Region (Laser) buying energy for Kent County Council in 2007, Maidstone Crown Court heard.

Over a 14-month period, Knowles - who earned a salary of £66,000 a year - extracted more than £2million and kept it for himself, the court was told.

Allison Clare, prosecuting, told the jury that the Cambridge graduate was regarded as 'a bit of a star' and a 'golden boy'.

She said: 'He was a huge asset to Laser, everybody thought. That may be why he was able to perpetrate the fraud.

'The essence of the fraud is really very simple.'

Knowles would ask British Gas and NPower to add an extra charge at their end of their dealings as a 'comfort blanket', Miss Clare told the court.

This was meant to be reclaimed by Kent County Council and Laser at the end of the year.

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Nikki Sinclaire: Fiddling expenses

Nikki Sinclair (ex-UKIP MEP)

ex-UKIP MEP Nikki Sinclair has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud the European Parliament for allegedly claiming road mileage but travelling on a much cheaper flight.

Nikki Sinclaire, from Meriden, West Midlands, was quizzed by detectives from West Midlands Police's Economic Crime Unit over allegations about her allowance and expense claims.

Miss Sinclaire, who was elected as a UKIP MEP for the West Midlands in June 2009, was arrested at a Birmingham police station on February 22nd 2012. 

She had the UKIP whip withdrawn in 2010 following rows over policy, but continues to represent the region in the European Parliament as an independent.

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Zultra's Notes: Although the grass roots of UKIP are Nationalists, the higher echelons aren't fond of Nationalists as they have restricted anyone affiliated with the BNP (and other similar groups) from joining.

John Holden: Benefit fraud

John Holden (Labour)

John Holden, 62, who represented Inverness South in the Highlands, was sentenced at the city's sheriff court today to a year in prison for defrauding £43,000-worth of benefits.

He was found guilty July 2011  after a 12-day trial.

Holden was convicted of committing the fraud over nine years, between January 1999 and August 2008.

On sentencing, Sheriff Abercrombie told him: "By deliberately making false claims for benefit and by deliberately failing to notify your true financial circumstances, you together with all other cheats who try to beat the system for personal gain have undermined that social contract. You have shown cold contempt for it."

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Milan Radulovic: Benefit Fraud

Milan Radulovic (Labour leader of Broxtowe Borough Council)

Milan Radulovic, Labour leader of Broxtowe Borough Council, is accused of receiving an overpayment in his incapacity benefit of £45,511.

This relates to allowances he is said to have claimed as a councillor, but did not declare as earnings, The council is run by a coalition of Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors.

His case will be heard at Nottingham Magistrates' Court on March 16.

Mr Radulovic has served as leader of the council since the election in May 2011 and has served as a councillor in Eastwood since 1986.

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David Parsons: Financial irregularities

Tory Councillor David Pearsons (Leicestershire County Council leader)

David Parsons has been accused of not promptly repaying money that he owed for trips to Europe, A county council report found debts were built up in 2007 but Mr Parsons has denied any wrongdoing.

A cross-party committee of councillors at the county council met on Monday to discuss a report into the allegations against Mr Parsons.

In addition to not promptly repaying travel expenses, the report raised concerns Mr Parsons frustrated the investigation by not giving permission for the inquiry to see details of the travel costs he claimed.

David Parsons (Leicestershire County Council leader) at one stage, owed debts of £5,400 built up and in one year, no repayments were made.

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