The court heard that Mote ran a successful public relations company employing 30 full-time staff until it collapsed in 1990. He then claimed housing and council tax benefits between 1991 and 1993 before finding freelance work in 1995. Mote began to claim benefits again from 1996 but failed to declare income from various enterprises including a cleaning company and gambling on the currency markets.
He was convicted by the jury of eight charges of false accounting, eight of obtaining a money transfer by deception, four of evading liability and one of failing to notify a change of circumstances. He was acquitted of four further charges. However Mote will retain his seat in Europe because he would only have been disqualified if he had received a term of imprisonment of more than 12 months. Now that IS disgraceful He should have been out on his arse forthwith.
Click here and here for earlier posts about Ashley Mote
