Reform MP Sarah Pochin has lost a Court of Appeal bid to have a challenge to the result of her by-election victory thrown out.
Ms Pochin won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by six votes following a recount on May 1, but one of the losing candidates, Graham Moore, has since launched a legal challenge against the result.
Mr Moore, who stood for the English Constitution Party in the by-election and finished last of 15 candidates with 50 votes, lodged a parliamentary election petition at the High Court on May 15, requesting that the election be declared void and that an independent recount be conducted.
Ms Pochin and returning officer Stephen Young asked the High Court to dismiss the petition, but two judges ruled last month that a “trial of the petition” should take place before an “election court comprising two judges”.
The pair challenged the decision at the Court of Appeal on October 16, with their barristers claiming that the petition did not comply with the rules, including by failing to state when it had been returned to the “Clerk of the Crown”, a senior civil servant.
But in a ruling on Thursday, three senior judges dismissed the appeal.
Lord Justice Newey, sitting with Lady Justice Andrews and Lord Justice Holgate, said that while there were “defects” in the petition, these should not “result in the petition being invalid and falling to be dismissed or struck out”.
He continued that there was no reason to believe that “anyone has been prejudiced in any way” by the defects in Mr Moore’s petition, and that the court could “retrospectively” take steps to ensure it complied with the rules.
He concluded: “I would dismiss the appeal. The trial of the petition should, in my view, proceed.”
An election petition is the only way to challenge the result of a Parliamentary election, with the Government website stating that anyone can challenge a result if they had the right to vote in it, or were a candidate.
Those filing petitions must usually do so within 21 days and pay around £650, and can do so if they feel it was run improperly, such as by votes being incorrectly counted or a candidate breaking the law.
The candidate who won the election must be served with the petition, even if the petitioner does not believe they have done anything wrong.
The Runcorn and Helsby by-election was triggered when former Labour MP Mike Amesbury quit after admitting to punching a constituent, with Ms Pochin overturning a majority of almost 14,700 to take the seat from Labour.
In addition to Ms Pochin and Mr Young, Mr Moore had originally issued the petition against Royal Mail and Cheshire Police over claims that they had respectively failed to deliver election leaflets and failed to investigate “election interference”.
In a ruling last month, Mr Justice Butcher and Mrs Justice Yip dismissed the case against Royal Mail and Cheshire Police, finding it would be “improper” for them to be involved.
But they continued that Mr Moore, who has represented himself throughout the legal claim, had a “fundamental right to contest the integrity of the election”, and that “relying upon procedural technicalities over substantive rights undermines the bedrock of English law”.
