UKIP are busy trying to distance themselves from Ashley Mote, found guilty last week of several fraud charges relating to false benefit claims he made before he became an MEP.

Mote was elected as a UKIP MEP. Indeed, he was their top candidate in the South East. Did they really not check his character and financial background before they selected him to represent the party in the European elections? Of course, when the news came out that he was facing so many criminal charges, UKIP kicked him out of the party (though they have not done this yet to their MEP Tom Wise following the allegations against him of financial irregularities over the use of office funds - if they do, they will have lost a quarter of the MEPs elected as UKIP in 2004!).

Ashley Mote has now joined the far-right neo-fascist "Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty" group, which gives you an idea of the type of political views UKIP seems to attract.

Ironically, Mote spent most of his time as an MEP making allegations about the EU accounts. Now it is he who has been found guilty of eight counts of false accounting. The other crimes Mote was found guilty of include eight charges of obtaining a money transfer by deception, four charges of evading liability and one charge of failing to notify of a change of circumstances.