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In the Central London County Court E40cl216 - Mayor's and City of London

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In the Central London County Court E40cl216 - Mayor's and City of London If this Transcript is to be reported or published, there is a requirement to ensure that no reporting restriction will be breached. This is particularly important in relation to any case involving a sexual offence, where the victim is guaranteed lifetime anonymity (Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992), or where an order has been made in relation to a young person This Transcript is Crown Copyright. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part other than in accordance with relevant licence or with the express consent of the Authority. All rights are reserved IN THE CENTRAL LONDON COUNTY COURT E40CL216 - MAYOR'S AND CITY OF LONDON Guildhall Buildings Basinghall Street London EC2V 5AR Friday, 19 July 2019 Before: HIS HONOUR JUDGE DIGHT CBE IN THE MATTER OF THE POLITICAL PARTIES, ELECTIONS AND REFERENDUMS ACT 2000; and THE POLITICAL PARTIES, ELECTIONS AND REFERENUDMS (CIVIL SANCTIONS) ORDER 2010 and IN THE MATTER OF AN APPEAL AGAINST THE DECISION TO IMPOSE DISCRETIONARY PENALTIES BETWEEN : DARREN GRIMES Appellant - and - THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION Respondent _________ MR T. STRAKER QC and MR F. HOAR (instructed by Saunders Law) appeared on behalf of the Appellant. SIR J. EADIE QC, MR R. MEHTA and MR A. RATAN (instructed by Fieldfisher) appeared on behalf of the Respondent. __________ JUDGMENT JUDGE DIGHT: 1 By this appeal Mr Grimes challenges the imposition on him by the Electoral Commission, in a final notice dated the 17th July 2018, of what are known as discretionary requirements in the total sum of £20,000 in respect of two offences which they found him to have committed in the reporting of expenditure in the campaign expenditure return filed as a result of participation by him and by an entity called BeLeave in the European referendum which took place on the 23rd June 2016. It is more precise to say that the Commission imposed no penalty in respect of the first offence but imposed the maximum penalty of £20,000 in respect of the second offence. 2 This appeal was originally due to be heard together with an appeal brought by Vote Leave, the designated organisation campaigning for a leave vote in the referendum. Vote Leave had been fined in excess of £60,000, but it has in the last few months paid the fines, and has discontinued its appeal. During the referendum period Vote Leave had donated approximately £650,000 to BeLeave which was paid directly to a Canadian data analytics company called Alternative IQ which carried out BeLeave's social media advertising. 3 The regulatory framework pursuant to which the requirements were imposed on Mr Grimes is contained in the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (“PPERA”), and the European Union Referendum Act 2015 (“EURA”). This appeal and the hearings that have gone before have generated a considerable amount of heat. My job in this appeal is a relatively technical one, which is to decide whether the grounds advanced by Mr Grimes in the course of his appeal have been made out on a proper construction of the two Acts of Parliament that I have referred to, having regard to the material which was before the Commission. 4 The two offences are as follows: first, under s.122(4)(b) of the PPERA, which provides that: "The responsible person commits an offence if without reasonable excuse he … (b) delivers a return which does not comply with the requirements of s.120(2);" Section 120(2) provides: "A return under this section must specify the referendum to which the expenditure relates, and must contain (a) a statement of all payments made in respect of referendum expenses incurred by or on behalf of the permitted participant during the referendum period in question;" The Electoral Commission found to the criminal standard of proof that Mr Grimes had failed without reasonable excuse to deliver an accurate campaign spending return because in the return which he delivered he included the spending of BeLeave; he did not confine the return to his own campaign spending. 5 The second offence is said to have been committed in breach of s.117(3) PPERA, which provides: "Where OPUS 2 DIGITAL TRANSCRIPTION 1 (a) during the referendum period any referendum expenses are incurred by or on behalf of anybody in excess of the limit imposed by subsection (1), and (b) the body is not a permitted participant, any person who authorises expenses to be incurred by or on behalf of the body is guilty of an offence if he knew or ought reasonably to have known that the expenses would be incurred in excess of that limit." The Electoral Commission found, again to the criminal standard of proof, that BeLeave was not what is known as a "permitted participant" because it was not an unincorporated association which had notified the Electoral Commission that it intended to campaign in the referendum; that it therefore had a spending limit of £10,000; but that Mr Grimes had authorised expenses of approximately £675,000 to be incurred by or on behalf of BeLeave; and that before or at the time of doing so he knew or ought to have known that expenses would be incurred in excess of the relevant limit. 6 The core of Mr Grimes's case has always been: (1) BeLeave had at all material times been an unincorporated association rather than just a campaign name, and it was entitled to be a permitted participant in the referendum; (2) proper notice had been given to the Electoral Commission on behalf of BeLeave by Mr Grimes that BeLeave intended to campaign; (3) that BeLeave therefore, and not Mr Grimes, was a permitted participant; (4) that BeLeave therefore had a spending limit of £700,000; (5) that BeLeave was entitled therefore to incur and did incur referendum expenditure of £675,000-odd; (6) that Mr Grimes filed an accurate return on behalf of BeLeave which showed BeLeave's total expenditure; (7) and accordingly, on a proper construction of the PPERA and on the material before them, the Electoral Commission was not entitled to reach the conclusion to the criminal standard that either of the two offences had been made out. 7 In the course of this appeal I have been provided with a very considerable quantity of documents, both contemporaneous documents and documents prepared subsequently, including a substantial amount of written submissions on behalf of both parties. In the course of this judgment, I will only refer to those which enable me to reach my conclusions on the grounds of appeal. 8 I turn to look briefly at the factual background to the case. The first area of dispute, chronologically and logically, is about the nature of the entity known as BeLeave. My attention was drawn in the course of the hearing to emails which were said to suggest the existence of BeLeave from as early as December 2015 or January 2016. For example, there is an email dated 19th January 2016 from Steven Parkinson to Cleo Watson at Vote Leave, which says, of Mr Grimes: "This guy is a former Liberal Democrat activist and a friend of a friend. I met him for a coffee in Newcastle over Christmas, and told him the best thing he could do to help us was to do a few videos and tweet them out. What he's done is even better than that." Mr Parkinson then provided a link to BeLeave's Facebook page, which was obviously in existence by that time, and he went on to say: OPUS 2 DIGITAL TRANSCRIPTION 2 "If you like it, can we share one of his posts on our Facebook page or retweet him occasionally? That will keep him feeling loved, and hopefully encourage more people to do this sort of thing. He is a student in Brighton, so not sure if he's looking for a job, but he seems like somebody we could use to do more things if we like his work." 9 By 13th February 2016 it is apparent that BeLeave had a Twitter account. I have seen the record of account opening payment, and certainly by, or shortly after, that date the account was active, and there was a number of followers. All of the documents that I am about to refer to during this review of the background facts are documents which were in the hands of the Commission before they reached their final conclusions in this case. 10 On 3rd March 2016 the Statutory Instrument which set the date of the referendum cleared Parliament. During the course of the two weeks after that, it is apparent from the material before me that Mr Grimes was in continuing contact with Vote Leave. I have been shown, for example, an email dated 14th March 2016 between various officers at Vote Leave, confirming that they were content for BeLeave to use the Vote Leave logo. 11 On the following day, 15th March, Mr Grimes completed what is referred to as an application form to register as a campaigner for the referendum. The form says, at the foot of the front page, that it is for individuals or organisations, including political parties, who plan to spend more than £10,000 campaigning at the EU referendum. In the body of the form, which I infer was completed online, there are six sections. At the front of the form there are explanatory notes in respect of each of those six sections, explaining how the form should be completed. It is apparent to anyone who has looked at the form which he filed that, with the greatest respect, Mr Grimes was confused about how this should have been completed, because the details which he provided are not necessarily in a logical order in the sense that there is a slight non-sequitur between the way in which he completed some of the sections of the form.
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