Civic hall to host historic hearing

The pomp and circumstance of the High Court will come to Saddleworth Civic Hall in September for the historic election court hearing.

The Lee Street building in Uppermill will be completely taken over for proceedings which could unseat an MP for the first time in 100 years.

The civic hall has been chosen by court administrators in London, after defeated Oldham East and Saddleworth Liberal Democrat candidate Elwyn Watkins successfully petitioned High Court judges. He alleges that the man who won the seat on May 6 by 103 votes, Labour’s former immigration minister Phil Woolas, and his agent Joe Fitzpatrick, made false statements about him.

And the High Court has agreed to send two of its senior judges to Saddleworth for a week from September 13 to hold a trial of the allegations.

The hearing has to be in the constituency — Oldham’s Civic Centre and the magistrates’ court fall in Oldham West and Royton.

Two senior judges, Mr Justice Griffith Williams, and Mr Justice Teare, with the Official Recorder of the House of Commons, will hear the case for both sides without a jury.

Th pair will decide whether Mr Watkins’s view that Mr Woolas’s election leaflet material falsely claimed he would represent the views of extremist Muslims, funded his election with £200,000 with the intent of “buying” the seat, and that he did not live in the constituency, is correct.

The case is expected to attract international attention as the law has not been used in this way since 1911.