Conservative MP candidate and campaign chief admit cheating with election bets

Tristan Kirk, Press Association Courts Editor

The Conservative Party’s former director of campaigning and his Parliamentary candidate wife have admitted cheating at gambling on the date of the 2024 general election.

Anthony Lee, 49, admitted two charges of cheating as he appeared at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.

His wife, Laura Saunders, 38, stood next to Lee and pleaded guilty to one charge of cheating.

In 2024, Lee was the Conservative’s director of campaigning, in charge of deploying resources for the general election which was called by then-prime minister Rishi Sunak in July of that year.

Saunders, who appeared in court under her married name Laura Lee, was head of international at Conservative Party HQ and had been selected as a parliamentary candidate for Bristol North-West.

Their guilty pleas follow admissions by Craig Williams, the former Tory MP for Montgomeryshire and Cardiff North who was Mr Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary, and Amy Hind, the wife of Conservative deputy digital director Anthony Hind, that they too had cheated at gambling.

They were all charged after an investigation into allegations that inside information on the date of the 2024 general election had been used to place bets.

Hind, Lee, and Sanders are all now due to be sentenced at the same court on October 23.

Williams is due to be sentenced after trials in September 2027 and January 2028 of other party officials and insiders who are also accused of cheating at gambling.

---

Get more trusted Welsh news

Choose Nation.Cymru as a preferred source in Google News to see more of our journalism.