Members of the community campaign group Acorn face no further action after a complaint to the police that they had broken election law by misrepresenting two candidates.
Acorn apologised on its social media accounts to Labour candidate Simon Charleton and Independent candidate Adrian Hart after the mistake in the run up to the Queen’s Park by-election last month.
The group said that Mr Charleton and Mr Hart had refused to answer questions from Acorn even though both had responded.
As a result, Sussex Police said that it had received complaint and was investigating it because misrepresenting a candidate during an election is a criminal offence.
Yesterday, Sussex Police said: “Following the recent council by-election in Brighton and Hove, Sussex Police received an allegation reporting that a possible offence, contrary to section 106 (1) of the Representation of the Peoples Act 1983, may have been committed during the campaigning leading up to the election.
“Sussex Police conducted an initial investigation to establish the exact circumstances of the report which concluded that an offence under section 106 had not been made out.
“Therefore, no further action was taken as the error was promptly corrected and publicised.
“No arrests or charges were brought in the course of the investigation.”
In a social media post before polling day on Thursday 18 September, Acorn said: “We said that he (Mr Hart) had refused to answer our questions on housing ahead of the Queen’s Park by-election and this was incorrect – he had got in touch with us but this was missed.
“We’re happy to publish Adrian Hart’s corrected stance on our three demands below and apologise again to Adrian for getting it wrong – we made a mistake and hold our hands up.
“We’re happy to say that Adrian has backed Acorn’s stances on each of the three questions and look forward to working with him if he is elected.”
The questions were
- Will you use your power to fight private developers that refuse to build affordable housing?
- Will you ensure all council-owned land is earmarked for council housing not sold to developers?
- Will you stand against the sell-off of the Freshfield Industrial Estate?
Mr Hart was a vocal campaigner against the development of the former American Express site.
He said: “I led the Scrap the Plan campaign in 2018 where our streets fought the developer plans for unaffordable housing in Edward Street.
“We lost but the community then won the lease of abandoned council land and that is now White Street Community Garden – a patch of land we were, in 2019, more than willing to hand over for genuine social housing.
Mr Charleton the houses at Queens road and Down Terrace you supported are nearly £600,000 for a three bed family home. Is this affordable housing is central to everything you believe in for Queen’s Park?
You Campaigned on bitching about the Greens, where as the Greens policy that hit home with residents of Queen’s Park
Labour has been majority council in Brighton the longest yet all problems lie with the Greens? No mention of austerity introduced by the conservatives and continued by blue Labour.
Your distractions and hypocrisy is where you lost to Cllr Lademacher.
Who made the complaint