A FORMER Highland councillor who fiddled his expenses to cover up the fact he had overspent on his election campaign has been spared a jail sentence.
Alex MacLeod’s bill for his successful campaign to win a seat on the local authority was more than three times what was allowed under the rules.
Inverness Sheriff Court heard that MacLeod altered invoices and failed to submit others between March 22 and May 2, 2012 to ensure he fell below the £1,226 spending limit.
When he was elected to the Landward Caithness seat aged just 19 he was Scotland’s youngest councillor and a budding lawyer.
Now aged 21, MacLeod, who once worked for First Minister Alex Salmond, will be barred from a political career as well as a legal one because of his court conviction.
Sheriff Andrew Miller told him yesterday: “Limits on expenditure are intended to ensure fairness in the electoral process and the court must take a serious view of your actions in knowingly and fraudulently failing to reveal the true extent of your expenses and fraudulently altering invoices.
“Your unacceptable conduct has had significant consequences for your ambitions to pursue political office as well as in your personal life. You have let your electorate down.”
The sheriff ordered him to carry out 160 hours of unpaid community work.
Afterwards, MacLeod said: “I am looking forward to the opportunity to repay the significant debt I owe to society and offer my constituents closure.”
He could have been jailed for up to six months but Sheriff Miller imposed community service as an alternative to custody because of his remorse.
MacLeod, of Kinrhive House, Delny, near Invergordon, admitted falsifying his expenses and conducting an election campaign by fraud.
Fiscal depute Amanda Mitchell said police received an anonymous letter in July, 2012, and discovered that despite assuring council officials he had only spent £1,162, he had run up bills totalling £3,796.
In addition, MacLeod stayed in Mackay’s Hotel at Wick during the campaign and ran up an account for £1,332.17.
This was never claimed back from Highland Council and has yet to be paid to the hotel. It did not form part of the charge against him, but MacLeod’s agent, solicitor Duncan Henderson, said it would be paid in full. Mr Henderson added: “He completely accepts he fraudulently altered invoices and has since resigned from the council and the SNP.
“In his enthusiasm for politics, he embarked on a fairly amateurish scheme which the police had no difficulty in detecting. His remorse is genuine and he accepts he has let his electorate down. He will pay a high price because he will not be allowed to continue in politics and will be barred from other walks of life, as he had been accepted to study as a lawyer.
“He accepts the integrity of the electoral process must be preserved and that he stepped outside his and his family’s moral code.”
MacLeod was educated at Tain Royal Academy, left school early and worked for 10 months for First Minister Alex Salmond.
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