News

AN MP BUT NOT A CHARITY TRUSTEE

By Finkle

Rodney Hylton-Potts, a seemingly "comedy fascist " and the winner of ITV's 'Vote For Me' who is standing against Tory Leader, Michael Howard, in Folkstone, was o­nce sentenced to five years in prison for mortgage fraud.

He would not be disqualified from taking office in the unlikely event that he managed to unseat Howard as such disqualification would apply o­nly to serving prisoners.Muhammed Hussain, a former Blackburn Councillor, was convicted to election fraud and o­n 8 April this year was sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

He can, and almost certainly will be, disqualified from seeking public office as a Councillor for a maximum of five years.

However, as both have been convicted of criminal offences involving dishonesty and have received sentences of more than two years and which  will never by 'spent' under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, both are now permanantly disbarred from acting as a trustee of a registered charity under the provisions of section 72 to the Charities Act.

Isn't it odd that the law places more store o­n questions of honesty and fitness for office when it comes to charities, the vast majority of which deal with very small amounts of money each year, than it does when it comes to political office and the control of millions or even billions of pounds of public money?