Israr Rashid, who was accused of cheating a Wycombe council election in 2019, has been found not guilty by a unanimous jury.
Following a seven-day trial, jurors at Amersham Law Courts took less than an hour to acquit Mr Rashid of conspiracy to defraud, which he had been charged with in relation to the February 2019 by-election for the Totteridge and Bowerdean ward.
The case against Mr Rashid was described as “worrying” by his defence barrister Anthony Abel, with the prosecution relying only on circumstantial evidence against his client.
Before the jury was sent out, the court heard how the prosecution’s case against Mr Rashid “cast doubt”, with no witnesses coming forward to claim their ballots had been forged and no “co-conspirators” called to provide evidence.
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Giving his closing speech to the jurors before they were sent to consider their verdict, defence barrister Anthony Abel said: “This is a very worrying case where the prosecution have been quite selective in the evidence that they have decided to rely upon.
“The case really depends on huge, really worrying assumptions, that they make about what the (Whatsapp) messages mean.
“Evidence called by the prosecution that doesn’t present the complete picture.”
Throughout the trial, which started on Tuesday 11 January, the jury were shown dozens, possibly hundreds, of messages in group chats involving Mr Rashid and his campaign allies.
The prosecution asserted that these contacts were Mr Rashid’s “co-conspirators” and that he and his allies worked together to “harvest” postal votes, fraudulently filling them in and casting them in his name on a large scale.
Mr Abel questioned why none of these “co-conspirators” were brought to court as witnesses, and the court heard how none of them had even been interviewed by police.
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Mr Abel said: “Not a single one of these many people, who the prosecution says are involved in this conspiracy, not one of these people were interviewed by the police, either on a voluntary basis or under caution.
“Not one of them was approached with the view to taking witness statements from them.
“You may think that’s a strange thing, he’s charged with conspiracy with others but he’s the only person in the dock.”
The defence barrister also turned to what he referred to as the prosecution’s “trump card” – messages that the prosecution claimed showed Mr Rashid’s intention to forge a signature on a ballot paper.
The message, sent by Mr Rashid onto a group chat on the evening of February 4, 2019 read: “Salaam need to pst faiz postal vote need his signature…Can u send me a pic I can do signature.”
During the trial, the prosecution claimed that this message was evidence that Mr Rashid was in possession of “Faiz’s” ballot paper and needed to see a picture of his signature so he could forge it.
Mr Abel argued that the message had been taken out of context, and that if Mr Rashid had been in possession of a fraudulent ballot paper, questioned why it was not discovered in his home when he was arrested the following morning at 7am.
He said: “It casts doubt on the interpretation, on the assumption, that the prosecution are asking you to make.”
During his speech, Mr Abel pointed out that none of the voters that Mr Rashid was accused of defrauding had been called as a witness in the trial to give evidence against the defendant.
He said: “If they are saying that these people didn’t vote for Mr Rashid then it should be straightforward to assemble a number of those voters as witnesses, and they can come to court and say that’s not my signature, that’s not my vote.
“That hasn’t happened, you have not heard from one single voter called by the prosecution.”
Meanwhile, the defence provided statements from 20 voters who had their postal ballots rejected by the council. All 20 of them declared that they had cast their votes for Mr Rashid by their own hand.
Mr Rashid was also found not guilty by judge Catherine Tulk of two counts of personation after the prosecution declined to present evidence on either charge.
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