Tory admits harassing rivals in hate campaign

by Dave Keating | August 5, 2008 at 11:41 pm

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In a really extraordinary case, a Conservative UK polititian has admitted that he violated the law by menacing his opponants, even going so far as sending hate mail to their homes accusing them of being paedophiles. Methinks the Tories should do a little more vetting for their candidates and nominees!

Everyone knows politics is a dirty business, but even by Westminster standards the ambitious Tory prospective parliamentary candidate for Watford took it too far.

Ian Oakley, 31, may have been trying to "change the political landscape" when he vandalised the property of his rivals and bombarded them with hate mail. But after admitting to 75 offences yesterday during a two-year campaign of intimidation and harassment against local Liberal Democrats, the former chairman of Durham University's Conservatives can now add crimes including falsely accusing opponents of being paedophiles and making menacing phone calls to his political résumé.

Oakley was warned by magistrates that he could face a prison sentence for his hate campaign, which included among its targets his Liberal Democrat rival for the Labour-held seat of Watford, Sal Brinton. She received gay and lesbian magazines through the post and letters variously saying "go back to Cambridge you evil bitch" and addressing her as "Sal Bitchton".