UKIP and Expenses - True Troughing

I see the UKIP party seem to be the main beneficiaries of the expenses scandal when we look at the current polls for the coming European Elections on June 4th 2009.

Well how easily can the public can be deceived as the UKIP party has probably the worst record on expenses of all the parties involved in the European Elections, including one, Ashley Mote who was elected in 2004 for the UKIP party and then spent 6 months in prison after being found guilty of 21 charges of deception. Amazingly uder EU laws he was allowed to retain his MEP status.

They also have another MEP elected under the UKIP banner who has been charged with a number of cases of false accounting and money laundering.

Derek Frame, a reviewing lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Service’s special crime division, said:

“Following the publication of a news article in October 2005 relating to Mr Wise and Ms Jenkins, the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) began an investigation into Mr Wise’s use of allowances. Olaf subsequently passed the investigation to Bedfordshire Police Economic Crime Unit for investigation.

“These charges relate to alleged offences committed between October 2004 and September 2005. At the time Mr Wise was a MEP representing the United Kingdom Independence Party and Ms Jenkins was employed by him as a researcher.”

This is not a bad count for a party that only started out with 12 MEP's. Now two have had to leave because of the depth they had managed to get their snouts ito the EU trough.

MEP Tom Wise charged with fiddling accounts and money laundering - Times Online