Mark Heywood KC and Ben Holt were instructed in the prosecution of Nathan Gill.

In 2014 Gill was selected as the first candidate (of four) to stand for the UK Independence Party for the region of Wales in the elections to the European Parliament. He became an MEP for Wales on 1 July 2014. He held the seat until the United Kingdom left the EU on 31 January 2020.

An investigation carried out by the MPS Counter-Terrorism Command demonstrated that Gill had been bribed by a Ukrainian national, Oleg Voloshyn. Voloshyn was a member of the ‘Opposition Platform – For Life’ political party; a pre-Russian, Eurosceptic, political party in Ukraine. Voloshyn was acting on behalf of a wealthy Ukrainian man called Victor Medvedchuk. Medvedchuk has close links to Vladimir Putin.

Gill received cash payments in order to make comments and statements that were critical of the Ukrainian government’s decision to ban certain media outlets that were linked to Medvedchuk. He also criticised the criminal investigation into Medvedchuk. Gill both made statements in the European Parliament and was also interviewed by television companies. Scripts were provided to Gill by Voloshyn containing the text that he was required to repeat.

This was the first prosecution of a UK politician using the bribery legislation. Some of the complexities include overseas evidence and enquiries, EU and other foreign law, international cooperation and questions of European parliamentary process and immunity.

Gill pleaded guilty in September of this year.

He was sentenced by Cheema Grubb J at the Central Criminal Court on 21 November. The Judge said that bribery is a ‘malignancy at the heart of public life’. This was a ‘particularly egregious abuse of position’. The offending demonstrated a persistent lapse of judgement. The Judge described the harm caused as ‘profound’. Referring to Russia as a ‘persistently hostile state’, the Judge said this, ‘The revelation of your actions has a broad and deleterious effect on public confidence and trust in democratic institutions of importance to many dozens of millions of people. The aggregate financial gain, although difficult to quantify precisely due to the piecemeal and cash nature of payments, is substantial’.

The statutory maximum sentence for a single offence was ten years’ imprisonment. The Judge concluded that the multitude of high culpability factors and the gravity of the case elevated it to the top of the sentence range. Once the persistent nature of the offending was taken into account, as well as the fact that Gill had sought to enlist other British MEPs, further upward adjustment was required. The sentence, before credit for plea and mitigation, was sixteen years’ imprisonment.

Making those reductions, the total sentence imposed was ten-and-a-half-years’ imprisonment.

Counsel were instructed by Richard Link of the Counter Terrorism Division of the Crown Prosecution Service.