Former MP Bob Spink and Ukip election agent James Parkin have avoided jail after being found guilty of tricking elderly constituents into signing electoral forms backing local candidates.
Bob Spink, who served as Tory MP for Castle Point in Essex for five years before defecting to the pro-Brexit party in 2008, was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of four counts of submitting false signatures on nomination forms, a type of electoral fraud.
The 69-year-old will be sentenced at Basildon Crown Court alongside James Parkin, 39, who was Ukip's election agent at the time.
He was found guilty of two counts of the same offence, and found not guilty of three. He had already admitted two counts.
They were both given six month prison sentences, suspended for two years, will have to do 150 hours of unpaid work and will need to pay £5,000 each in prosecution costs.
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