Disgraced former Reform Wales leader ordered to pay back £22,500 after bribery conviction
Nation.Cymru staff/agencies
A former leader of Reform UK in Wales who was jailed for taking bribes to make pro-Russian statements has been ordered to hand back more than £22,500 or face extra time in prison.
Nathan Gill, 53, has been given six months to pay £22,592.41, with a further nine-month prison sentence if he fails to do so.
The former MEP, from Anglesey, is already serving a 10-and-a-half-year sentence after admitting eight counts of bribery committed between December 2018 and July 2019.
Gill was not required to attend the Old Bailey on Thursday, where Judge Richard Marks KC ruled that he had benefited from his crimes by £22,592.41 and ordered him to repay the same amount.
The court heard Gill is expected to sell a rental property to raise the money.
Clare Ashcroft, representing Gill, told the court: “The property needs to be sold. Notice has been given to the tenants. Until these tenants vacate, that property cannot be put on the market.”
It is understood the rental property and Gill’s family home are both on Anglesey.
Gill became the first British politician to be sentenced under the Bribery Act 2010 when he was jailed in November last year.
At the time of the offences, he was a member of the European Parliament, having originally been elected for Ukip.
His activities included making pro-Russian statements about events in Ukraine in the European Parliament and writing opinion pieces for news outlets including 112 Ukraine.
The architect of the bribes was Oleg Voloshyn, a former pro-Russian Ukrainian MP who, along with his wife, was connected to 112 Ukraine.
The television channel was owned by wealthy pro-Russian Ukrainian Viktor Medvedchuk, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the ultimate source of the requests and money Gill received.
Gill’s crimes were uncovered after he was stopped at Manchester Airport on September 13, 2021, as he attempted to travel to Russia.
His mobile phone was examined and investigators discovered messages between him and Voloshyn.
WhatsApp exchanges included references to “promised x-mas gifts”, “postcards” and “5K”, which referred to payments.
‘Corrupt’
Gill went on to lead Reform UK’s campaign in the 2021 Senedd election but is no longer a member of the party.
Sentencing him last November, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Gill had allowed money to corrupt his “moral compass”, amounting to “a grave betrayal of the trust vested in you by the electorate”.
She told him: “Your misconduct has ramifications far beyond personal honour, which is now irretrievably damaged. It erodes public confidence in democracy itself.”
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I am sure the prosecutors would have offered to reduce his sentence if he told them who else was in on this.
Maybe someone whose name rhymes with barrage?
I do hope he won’t be eligible for early release anytime soon. John Harrington deserves the last word on this:
Treason doth never prosper; what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.