Further to my post about Shah Yousuf last week, I’ve now spoken to the court authorities and here are some more details about his two appearances. He appeared last Monday at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court and again four days later on Friday.
On Monday he was charged with the following offences:
1. Making false or unauthorised [statements] or service declaration at election. Between the 15th October and the 21 October 2010, ShahYousuf, Editor of the London Bangla newspaper did publish a false statement before an election in relation to the personal character and conduct of Helal Abbas, the Candidate for the Tower Hamlets Mayoural Election, for the purpose of affecting the return of any candidate at the election.
CONTRARY TO SECTION 106(1) AND 169 REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT 19832. Making false or unauthorised [statements] or service declaration at election. Between the 15th October and the 21 October 2010, Shah Yousuf, Editor of the London Bangla newspaper did publish material which could reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure the election of a candidate at an election (whether or not it can be so regarded as intended to achieve any onther purpose as well) being an advertisement contained in a newspaper the London Bangla, failed to imprint the relevant details, being name and address of the printer of the document.
CONTRARY TO SECTION 110(6) AND (9) REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE ACT 1983
The reporter who attended the court last Monday filed the following copy on the wires for the Sunday Express and other newspapers, including locals:
A Bangladeshi newspaper editor accused of publishing false information about a politician ahead of an election has appeared in court.
Shah Yousuf, who ran the London Bangla newspaper, printed a story allegedly containing lies about Helal Abbas, who stood as a candidate in the Tower Hamlets Mayoral Election last year.
The article, published between October 15 and 21 last year – just days before the vote – is said to have blasted the personal character and conduct of Mr Abbas, who was representing the Labour party.
Mr Abbas lost out on the title to Lutfur Rahman, a former Tower Hamlets council leader who stood as an independent – winning the backing of London mayoral candidate, Ken Livingstone – after being dropped by Labour.
Yousuf, 33, of Pauline House, Old Montague Road, Tower Hamlets, is also accused of printing an advert to promote another election candidate, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard. Smartly dressed in a grey suit and white shirt, he spoke only to confirm his name, age and address.
The District Judge was Simon Barron. Yousuf’s barrister is Nicola Margiotta, and the Crown Prosecutor was Rosemary Fernandes.
On Friday, Yousuf pleaded not guilty and a trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court was set for April 3 next year. Before that, there will be a case management hearing on December 8.
Here is the relevant section of the Representation of the People Act:
106 False statements as to candidates.
(1)A person who, or any director of any body or association corporate which—
(a)before or during an election,
(b)for the purpose of affecting the return of any candidate at the election,
makes or publishes any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct shall be guilty of an illegal practice, unless he can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing, and did believe, that statement to be true.
This case, which relates to this advert, has potentially extremely serious implications for both Tower Hamlets politics and also, by extension, Ken Livingstone given that the trial is due to take place a month before May’s London mayoral polls.
Trial by Jeory 
Fingers crossed. Tampering with the democratic process is a serious offence, although it seems not to taken seriously enough by the courts.
Good spot Ted. Let’s wait and see what comes of it.
Tim
Nor taken seriously enough by the local media. None of this was reported in the local press, Bangla or otherwise – despite them all being aware of it.
I wouldn’t expect the exemplary East End Life to be running a story on it, but may have hoped for a sniff from the others – alas.
Tim.
[…] hope the court case answers those questions. And as Ted Jeory has pointed out, it could be awkward for that other man of honesty, courage and truth, Ken Livingstone, too. Ken […]
If this isn’t a story which should be run by East End Life – as a warning to others – I don’t know what is.
The fact that the Director of Public Prosecutions is satisfied that there is a case to answer indicates at the very least that the Council might be well advised to remind its electorate of what you can and can’t do at election time!
Not running the story at all would appear to indicate that the EEL freesheet is actually a party political paper as opposed to a Council Information newspaper. That’s strictly “ultra vires” in terms of legitimate council expenditure
On that basis I think somebody might have grounds to challenge the totality of the Council’s expenditure on the paper. I think I’m right in saying that personal liability arises where the Council incurs expenditure for which it has no legal authority.
Ted – How about asking Eric Pickles what his take on the situation is? He’s known to be no great lover of Council Freesheets.
The views of the Council’s Returning Officer would also be interesting – with a failure to provide a comment speaking volumes…….
YCMIU – my point exactly. Given the (not-so-)hidden agenda of the East End Life, it emphatically SHOULD be running the story but won’t touch it with a bargepole! When did you last see anything that was other than arse-lickingly complementary about Lutfur, his election or his core electorate in that newspaper?
However we know that it is very much the despicable Rahman’s political mouthpiece of favour, and hence will not stop being published until the presses are forcibly turned off by a more powerful political force. If that day can be hastened by addressing this matter to Eric Pickles then you’ve just made an excellent suggestion … how about it, Ted?
Tim
Read between the lines on this:
https://trialbyjeory.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/east-end-life-lives-on-but-for-how-long/
And more explicitly, this:
https://trialbyjeory.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/minister-bob-neill-warns-tower-hamlets-council-over-east-end-life/
… the very two articles I had in mind when I wrote my last post.
Ted, what is your honest opinion on how much longer the EELies has to run? Is it genuinely under threat, or is this all just hot air?
(And, yes, I appreciate this is a red herring for this thread – and apologise.)
Tim.
This stuff is laughable. It is a council freesheet. Its portfolio is telling residents about what their council tax is being spent on. At the moment, the Lutfur is spending our council tax, so it is full of him telling us what he’s spending it on, and if we don’t like it, we can vote him out. And yes, it boasts a few other conveniences for residents like TV listings, restaurant reviews and highlighting local businesses for the benefit of the local community.
It is in effect a paper version of the council website because many poor people in this borough, unlike all of us here on WordPress, don’t have computers. Is that so difficult to understand, chaps?
Since when has it carried reports of criminal cases in courts? Even ones relevant to the locality…
Ted is absolutely right to say the local press is a bloody shambles, but this far fetched “oooh!!! Mr Pickles!!! we’ve got them now!!!” stuff is unintelligent nonsense. Anyway, given Mr Pickles’ government’s attitude to poor people, you’d be a pretty depraved individual to let him loose on a borough like Tower Hamlets.
This is a council “freesheet” (ie there is nothing free about it) which is paid for by Council Taxpayers and the Government (ie it’s all paid for by tax – apart from a few adverts)
The relevance of the story is that the Council runs the elections. The way in which the elections are conducted is a matter of relevance to the Returning Officer (usually the CEO of the local authority), the Electoral Commission, the Police and the courts (in respect of infringements – which are alleged to be rife in LBTH) and the electorate – because we get the politicians generated by electoral activity and campaigning.
How exactly is none of that relevant to the ordinary resident of Tower Hamlets?
Don’t you think the Council (ie the Returning Officer) has a role in civic education in promoting the proper conduct of elections and acceptable behaviour by the candidates and their “hangers on”?
The fact of the matter is that it’s the behaviour by the EEL which will ultimately provide the evidence for any actions taken by the Government to stop wasting money in a time of extreme resource constraints.
Since when was listing what’s on TV one of the really important functions of a local authority – as opposed to ensuring a fair democracy?
No Steve, it’s not that simple – and if you don’t realise that then you are naive in the ways of both the press and politics. Both the choice of stories run and the angle taken on those stories betray strong favour towards Lutfur, creating the positive impression that he is so keen to engender – given the time he spends with his ‘communications department’ (see posts on here about Rahman’s diaries).
If the paper was so solely focussed on factual information of relevance to local people then why would a story such as the topic of this blog thread be overlooked?
(‘So many poor people in this borough don’t have computers’, eh? Remarkably, there have been 4,300 free laptops and broadband connections applied for in LBTH under the governments Home Access Scheme*. And let’s not ignore – as Lutfur likes to – the young, internet-savvy types living in their thousands in the Docklands developments. Big snag is that Lutfur can’t control the content of news sites on the internet, whereas he can – and does – very closely control the content of the EEL.)
Tim.
* – http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.towerhamlets.gov.uk%2Fidoc.ashx%3Fdocid%3Dcb8db026-0663-4a01-8a4c-c142d0831127%26version%3D-1&ei=4jPMTv6YKIba8AP4pKHiDw&usg=AFQjCNEq47crQsW2rcg5XUc9ex8Vke6IgQ