LAWYERS for a police and crime commissioner candidate are today (October 6) expected to try and recoup their client’s legal fees – incurred fighting an election fraud case.

Prosecutors dropped the charge against Jonathon Seed on the first day of his trial in July, telling Judge Michael Gledhill KC that the case had been reviewed and there was no longer thought to be a reasonable prospect of securing a conviction.

Seed, 64, of Bromham, Wilts, was accused of making a false declaration on his nomination papers that he was eligible to stand in the 2021 Wiltshire Police and Crime Commissioner elections.

However, it later emerged that a 1993 drink driving conviction barred him from standing in the election. He claimed to have made an ‘honest mistake’.

His disqualification from the race was only discovered after the polls, at which he won the highest number of votes, had closed.

A re-run election was expected to cost £1.5m. It was won by Conservative candidate Philip Wilkinson.

In July, Richard Wormald KC, for Seed, applied to the court for ‘wasted costs’ - essentially asking the judge to make the CPS pay part of their client’s legal fees. 

Judge Gledhill adjourned the legal argument about whether costs should be awarded to Seed - Wiltshire councillor for Melksham Without West & Rural - until September. The hearing was later moved.

Thursday afternoon's hearing is expected to last an hour.