UPDATED: WARRINGTON Borough Council leader Cllr. Russ Bowden’s trial by jury at Liverpool Crown Court scheduled for today, Monday, for alleged election malpractice has been adjourned until April 24.
The case had to be adjourned because there was no court room available to hear the case, which has been listed to last five days.
Cllr Bowden, aged 53, is facing three counts of providing false information for a purpose connected with the registration of electors and one of permitting a false statement to be furnished to a returning officer at an election.
The allegations involve providing his home address as a house in Birchwood while standing at the Warrington Borough Council elections while he was living at a property in Lower Walton.
The allegations followed Cheshire Constabulary receiving information relating to the Warrington local council elections 2021.
Cllr. Bowden has been charged with one count of providing a false statement in nomination papers (contrary to Section 65A of the Representation of the People Act 1983) and three counts of providing false information to a registration officer (contrary to section 13D of the Representation of the People Act 1983).
Cllr Bowden, who has denied the allegations, elected trial by jury.
After hearing from Bowden’s lawyer, Tanveer Qureshi that various issues need to be resolved Judge Louise Brandon fixed an all day hearing on March 17 for them to be heard.
Bowden was further remanded on unconditional bail until that date.
14 Comments
Nobody should comment on this. This comment section shouldn’t even be open, Gary.
So is facebook and twitter going to stop commenting? If any inappropriate comments are made they will be removed. Every court case reported on this website has commenting under it and there has never been an issue before – so why should this be any different? Unlike some media every comment posted is seen and dealt with accordingly.
People certainly shouldn’t
And for that reason Gary, WW is the more highly regarded locally. Keep on maintaining high independent journalist standards. Heaven knows we are markedly short of them in these parts.
There are no reporting restrictions whatsoever in this case. Anyone is entitled to report on it as long as the comments are based on facts which are true. Public officer is on public trial, any member of the public is entitled to go to Liverpool Crown Court, go up to the 5th floor and listen to the evidence in the FRAUD trial of Russ Bowden. It is not a malpractice trial.
This isn’t about reporting restrictions
Hi Damian,
I believe you have interesting info about Cheshire police, who are I believe the police force in the Letby case. I would be keen to hear more
I would agree, Mark.
Respectfully, Gary – I know you maintain high standards – it’s just such an emotive topic, I’d rather we all kept schtum and let the process run its course
And in reality, is that going to happen on social media? You can rest assured any comments posted on here deemed inappropriate will be removed. I’ve never had to close our comments section in relation to any other story we have ever reported.
I think you are being very fair regarding leaving the comment section open as you say Facebook and Twitter are not restricting comments.In my opinion if the comments are factual and not personal then I cannot see the problem with Warrington residents voicing an opinion.Looking forward to none biased reporting and I understand Gary has employed an independent journalist not connected to Warrington so have more confidence in what ww report against what WG report.
At least WW are actually running a story on one of the most important matters for Warrington and in particular its Borough Council in recent years.
There is an absence of any reporting elsewhere.
Senior Journalists from the BBC, Financial Times, Guardian and others are fully aware and following the case. One is here and in court. Would be silly if local media weren’t.
Case adjourned till 24th April 2023.
Anybody’s who’s read The Secret Barrister won’t be surprised by this – justice seems to be regularly delayed thanks to problems with courtrooms. This predates Covid, btw.
Regardless of how we might feel about a particular case, having a chaotic courts system is bad for justice