First Muslim mayor to face fraud trial: Tower Hamlets borough boss accused of promising houses for votes Daily Mail

Lutfur Rahman

  Lutfur Rahman allegedly used illegal tactics to win May mayoral election

  Islamic voters were 'told they should be good Muslims and support him'

  Supporters accused of branding his main rival racist and anti-Islamic

  Four voters have submitted damaging dossier of evidence to High Court

Britain’s first elected Muslim mayor is to face trial over claims he committed widespread voting fraud.

Lutfur Rahman, 48, is accused of using illegal tactics to win the mayoral election in Tower Hamlets, East London, in May.

People were allegedly promised council houses if they backed him and Islamic voters were told they should be ‘good Muslims’ and support him.

His supporters are accused of doctoring ballot papers, manipulating postal voting and sabotaging the chances of his main rival, Labour candidate John Briggs, by branding him racist and anti-Islamic.

Four voters have submitted a damaging dossier of evidence to the High Court in an attempt to overturn Mr Rahman’s election victory.

Yesterday Mr Justice Supperstone and Mr Justice Spence granted them the right to have their allegations heard at a full trial, which is expected to be heard in Tower Hamlets later this year.

Mr Rahman was a member of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party and was its candidate to be the first directly elected mayor of the borough in 2010.

But he was expelled from the Labour party after allegations surfaced about his close links with an Islamic extremist group called the Islamic Forum of Europe.

Mr Rahman then won the 2010 mayoral contest as an independent candidate.

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Homes for votes deal in council election fix': Petition claims polling for mayor in London's Tower Hamlets was fraudulent

Hospitals send parking bully boys to hound sick and grieving: NHS spends your cash on 'dodgy' debt collectors Daily Mail

  NHS Trusts are employing bogus lawyers to threaten vulnerable patients

  Patients taken to courts over £60 tickets issued while receiving treatment

  Trusts are using bailiffs to go after those who do not pay exorbitant 'fines'

  Parents issued a £50 ticket while at hospital to say goodbyes to dying son 

  Hospital refused to apologise and instructed solicitors to chase payment

Hospitals are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money to force patients to court over car parking tickets.

NHS Trusts are employing ‘unfit’ debt collectors and bogus lawyers to threaten vulnerable patients and their families and make them pay up.

In some cases, patients have been dragged through the courts over £60 tickets issued while they received treatment.

Documents seen by the Mail show Trusts across the country are using bailiffs and legal firms to go after those who do not agree to pay exorbitant car parking ‘fines’.

Elderly parents Robert and Josephine Taylor were issued a £50 ticket while at hospital to say final goodbyes to their son Stephen, who was dying of pneumonia. 

They had accidentally parked in the wrong bay but the hospital refused to apologise and instructed solicitors to chase the payment, threatening court action.

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See the previous part of this series

DVLA rakes in millions colluding with cowboys: Nearly 100 firms trying to buy drivers' details, official figures show

NEIL HERRON: We saw off the rogue clampers. Now let's purge the parking ticket pirates

Why do Hospitals feel the need to charge ridiculous car parking charges ?, it’s a tax on the ill and their visitors, and must be stopped  

This Polish boy lives in Warsaw... So why do WE pay his child benefit? Daily Mail

Mateusz Kossmann is a ten-year-old boy with a winning smile. 

Every morning, he’s taken to school by his mother Evita, who is delighted her son is in a small class of 14 other children.

The lessons are well-disciplined, pupils thrive academically and politely shake the hand of their teacher at the end of the day.It is just the kind of education Evita wants for Mateusz — and she has found it in her native Poland after a dispiriting spell living in England.

Once Poland became part of the EU in 2004, Evita — like thousands of other Eastern Europeans exploiting the EU open borders policy — excitedly migrated to Britain with her husband Sebastian, and their young son, to begin a new life.Sebastian, now 35, found an £18,500-a-year job in a Bristol factory and the couple successfully applied to be given £82 a month in child benefits for Mateusz, which is more than four times the £18 rate paid for children in Poland.

The Kossmann family is also entitled to £143 a month in child tax credits - a benefit not paid by the Polish government - to supplement Sebastian’s low income. This is paid annually, in arrears.Like countless other EU migrants, the family qualifies for the child-linked benefits because at least one parent works in Britain.

‘From day one, we felt the British welfare system was very generous,’ says Sebastian. ‘We are receiving far more than parents get in Poland. Getting the child tax credits, too, was a big amount of extra cash for us and we were pleased.’

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Exclusive: The inconvenient truth Mr Cameron ignored in his 'crackdown' on immigrant benefits... Migrants handed £5billion tax credits

Comment:

I don’t understand why if a child who  lives in another EU Country his parents get Child Benefit and Tax Credits if one parent works here in the UK,  this situation needs reviewing and repealing.