Trial of Warrington Borough Council leader Russ Bowden continues

Cllr Bowden has been charged with alleged electoral malpractice and faces three charges of providing false information for a purpose connected with the registration of electors and one of permitting a false statement to be furnished to a returning officer at an election.

The alleged offences involve him providing his home address as a house in Birchwood on April 6, 2021, while standing at the 2021 full council elections, when he was instead reportedly living at a property in Lower Walton.

The case opened on Tuesday and today, Friday, the court heard closing speeches from prosecution Sarah Griffin and defence Tanveer Qureshi.

Ms Griffin told the jury: “While your decision simply concerns something that was written on a form please don’t underestimate your job.

“Your decision is actually on a law that underpins our democracy - that those we elect to represent us are honest and truthful.

“Isn’t that the least we can hope for?

“The suggestion that being in a position of power where you are subject to scrutiny doesn’t automatically mean that you are honest and trustworthy.

“The position he was elected to attracts some power, so you may think it is particularly important that some individuals are held accountable.

“This isn’t at all to do with party politics, simply about honesty and truthfulness.”

Liverpool Crown Court

Earlier this week, the court heard how Cllr Bowden ‘temporarily’ moved out of his home in Applecross Close, Birchwood, to the property in Lower Walton in June 2019 following marital issues.

Cllr Bowden said how it was ‘always his intention’ to return to the Birchwood address which he bought back in 1996 and where he is the registered sole owner.

He said he visited the Birchwood property at least once a week while living at Lulworth Place.

Ms Griffin said that the cruxs of the case are that the crown says that Lulworth Place in Lower Walton, in the Bewsey and Whitecross constituency, was Cllr Bowden’s home address at the time he submitted his nomination form on April 6.

She continued: “Take yourselves out of this courtroom and in your everyday lives, just have a think please about what your interpretation of a home address is.

“Does an apartment that you have continually lived in for 21 months with no real break constitute for temporary accommodation or as we say somewhere you have dwelled or lived for a considerable period of time, where you reside, your home address?

“What we are dealing with here is a period just shy of two years.”

Jurors were asked to consider if items such as books, records, clothes, a barbecue, a bicycle, and a ‘preferred knife set’ would be the kind of belongings taken to temporary accommodation. In a list to his family solicitor, Cllr Bowden had said he was taking such items with him.

Addressing jurors, Ms Griffin said: “Now we say that Mr Bowden, who has been in politics since 2006 and represented Birchwood in one way or another since 2008, is a politically savvy man who has his wits about him.

“A local man, a family man, a man who did not want to publish understandably the breakdown of his marriage his move out to a flat

“His flat was not even in a neighbouring ward.

“What would it do to his reputation locally to declare he lived in a flat in Lower Walton and not his marital home?”

Ms Griffin also questioned if Cllr Bowden moving back to the Birchwood property in December 2022, two months before his trial was originally due to start was ‘strategic behaviour’.

Responding to this, Cllr Bowden’s defence Tanveer Qureshi said: “The investigation started in May 2021, he could have moved into Applecross at any point from May 2021.

“But he didn’t, he moved in December 2022 as that is when he was able to reconcile matters with his wife – something he always wanted to do.

“He moved out temporarily in the best interests of saving his marriage.”

Mr Qureshi said that there is no legal definition of ‘home address’ within the context of the case and that it depends on people's circumstances.

He said that the instructions regarding home address are ‘wooly’ and ‘unclear’ and it is not straightforward at all.

He said to jurors: “What would have happened if he had put the Lulworth address down?

“I can suggest to you what could have happened and I am going to speculate that a rival candidate could say ‘that isn’t the right address’.

“So you can’t win either way

“Mr Bowden says he has done what he honestly believes was the case, he did not act dishonestly.

“Why can’t he treat that house that he owns – and solely – as his permanent home address?

“He has lived there since 1996, over 20 years, and now the prosecution says you now can’t regard it as your home address.

“The prosecution just says just disregard the fact that he lived there for 26 years and on April 6, 2021, it wasn’t his home address.

“A temporary absence doesn’t mean he is deprived of using that address as his home address.

“And of course, he has reconciled his marriage and is back living at his home address which he always intended to do.”

The courtroom heard how Cllr Bowden was not being ‘politically savvy’ when filling out his nomination form and that he didn’t need any political advantage, as suggested by Ms Griffin.

He continued: “This man has dedicated almost 13 years of his life to public service and has been an elected official for the Birchwood ward since 2008.

“To say that this man in 2021 needed a political advantage to portray himself as a local man? Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest that is absolutely absurd.

“He was already a local man.

“If serving in a ward for 13 years doesn’t make you a local man, what does?

“When someone is so established and so well known in the community they don’t need to demonstrate they are a local man – because they already are a local man.”

The trial continues.