Lib Dem MSP cleared over election leaflets

Scottish Liberal Democrat MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton has been cleared of breaching election spending rules in a row over undelivered election leaflets.

But a wider probe by the Electoral Commission into Lib Dem election spending is ongoing.

The MSP was reported to police and the Electoral Commission after defeating the SNP in the 2016 Holyrood election.

The Crown Office had already concluded that Mr Cole-Hamilton had no criminal case to answer.

Mr Cole-Hamilton has released extracts of a letter from the Electoral Commission which indicates it found no breaches of the rules after investigating allegations centred on election leaflets which the Lib Dems said had not been delivered, so should not count towards limits on campaign spending.

But this formed only part of a wider probe into Lib Dem election spending which has still not concluded, and which includes allegations around spending which Mr Cole-Hamilton identified as list spending but which was said to have been omitted from the party's own national return.

Mr Cole-Hamilton stood as both a constituency and list candidate in the election.

In a letter to the Liberal Democrats, a section of which was released by Mr Cole-Hamilton, the Electoral Commission confirmed that there had been no breach of the rules over the leaflets.

'Unusual step'

The letter stated: "We queried the apportionments in respect of a number of leaflets that had been distributed in the constituency.

"In view of the responses to this aspect of the investigation, we are satisfied that there were no breaches in respect of the apportionments."

A spokeswoman for the commission said it was aware that Mr Cole-Hamilton had released an extract of the letter.

She added: "In line with our regulatory responsibilities the investigation we opened was into the Liberal Democrat Party's spending return from the 2016 Scottish Parliament election and this investigation has yet to conclude.

"Mr Cole-Hamilton has taken the unusual step of sharing extracts from a letter which the commission sent to the Liberal Democrats.

"Our investigation is ongoing. We will publish the outcome when it is concluded but until then we have no further comment to make on what is a live matter."

Police dropped an investigation into Jo Swinson last month after finding no criminality

In a statement subsequently posted on Twitter, Mr Cole-Hamilton said: "I released the paragraphs concerning the investigation into my campaign in Edinburgh Western which has been concluded.

"As the Electoral Commission comment makes clear a query regarding the national return remains ongoing.

"This is an issue that has been hanging over me for some time and I was relieved that the Electoral Commission are satisfied there were no breaches concerning Edinburgh Western.

"In light of the concern from the Electoral Commission that it was 'unusual' to release paragraphs from the letter I accept their point and will not release anything further."

Last month, police dropped their inquiry into Lib Dem deputy leader Jo Swinson after finding no criminality.

Ms Swinson had been reported over similar allegations to Mr Cole-Hamilton after defeating the SNP's John Nicolson in last year's general election.

The Lib Dems insisted all along that Ms Swinson and Mr Cole-Hamilton had done nothing wrong, and that the complaints against them were a "classic SNP tactic when they have lost an election".

The SNP has previously denied it was behind the complaint about Ms Swinson, which is understood to have been made by a constituent.