REFORM UK'S GEORGE MADGWICK CHARGED WITH 35 OFFENCES INCLUDING RAPE

The Crown Prosecution Service has charged George Madgwick, leader of the Reform UK group on Hampshire County Council, with 35 offences, including 12 counts of rape and making indecent images of a child. A Reform UK spokesperson said: "Cllr Madgwick has been suspended from Reform UK with immediate effect." The charges relate to four complainants, aged 16 and 17 at the time, and the alleged offences took place in Portsmouth and Wales between 2008 and 2021. Officers arrested a man in Wandsworth, south-west London, on 6 January.

The charges include 12 counts of rape, two of assault by penetration and two of sexual assault. They also include two counts of controlling or coercive behaviour and two of making indecent images of children. Madgwick faces eight counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, plus single charges of causing or inciting the sexual exploitation of a child, distributing an indecent image of a child, stalking, making threats to kill, false imprisonment, theft and criminal damage. He featured in the ITV documentary Undercover: A Year In Reform, voicing support for a Portsmouth group called the Portsmouth Patriots, and later accusing the broadcaster of "electoral interference".

The Crown Prosecution Service said it had decided to prosecute after concluding there was sufficient evidence and that doing so was in the public interest. Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary began investigating under Operation Amberstone after a report of a sexual offence on 24 July last year. The CPS said proceedings against Madgwick were active and that he had the right to a fair trial, with no reporting or commentary that could prejudice the case. Madgwick is due to appear before Portsmouth Magistrates' Court on 25 November.