Many more people than the leading Tories already identified are being investigated by the gambling regulator in relation to bets on the date of the general election, Sky News understands.
And in a major new development, the watchdog has widened its inquiries to investigate whether people with inside knowledge may have asked a third party to place a bet for them.
Sky News also understands that investigators have written to leading bookmakers asking for details of bets of £20 or more on the election date within days of Rishi Sunak announcing it on May 22.
The body carrying out the investigation, the Gambling Commission, already takes a close interest in political betting and carries out extra checks on bets by people connected with politics, Sky News has been told.
The gambling industry also regards politicians and those who work closely with them as PEPs, politically exposed persons who are people “entrusted with a prominent public function”.
That’s because these people generally “present a higher risk for potential involvement in bribery and corruption by virtue of their position and influence”, according to the Law Society.
Image: Nick Mason, the Conservative’s chief data officer, is being investigated by the Electoral Commission
Image: Laura Saunders is the party’s candidate in Bristol North West.
Pic: Laura Saunders for Bristol North West
It emerged on Saturday evening Nick Mason, the Tory party’s chief data officer, was the fourth Conservative candidate or official being investigated. He has taken a leave of absence and denies any wrongdoing.
Mr Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary Craig Williams, the Tory candidate for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr, admitted last week to placing a “flutter” on the date of the election.
Image: Craig Williams admitted to betting on the election date. Pic: PA
Home Secretary James Cleverly told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips he had been told “very, very clearly” to not discuss the investigation.
He added: “I’m not in any way going to defend people who placed bets on that.”
Asked whether there was a wider betting circle, Mr Cleverly said: “That’s not my understanding. My understanding is it’s a small number of individuals.”
He also said he has “no reason to believe” any ministers are involved in betting on the timing of the election.
What is the law around gambling?
There are strict rules around gambling, with the latest laws updated in 2005.
Section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005 deals with cheating and says a person commits an offence if they cheat at gambling or do “anything for the purpose of enabling or assisting another person to cheat at gambling”.
It adds: “It is immaterial whether a person who cheats improves his changes of winning anything, or wins anything.”
Cheating is defined as an “actual or attempted deception or interference in connection with the process by which gambling is conducted, or a real or virtual game, race or other event or process to which gambling relates”.
Someone found guilty of cheating at gambling can be imprisoned for a maximum of two years and/or fined, or six months in prison for a lesser offence.
Betting with insider knowledge is also not allowed as an MP, with the MPs’ code of conduct prohibiting members from “causing significant damage to the reputation and integrity of the house”.
A Gambling Commission spokesman said: “The Gambling Commission regulates gambling in the interests of consumers and the wider public.
“Currently, the Commission is investigating the possibility of offences concerning the date of the election.
“This is an ongoing investigation, and the Commission cannot provide any further details at this time. We are not confirming or denying the identity of any individuals involved in this investigation.”
A Conservative spokesman told Sky News: “As instructed by the Gambling Commission, we are not permitted to discuss any matters related to any investigation with the subject or any other persons.”
The other candidates for Bristol North West are:
Caroline Gooch, Lib Dems
Darren Jones, Labour
Scarlett O’Connor, Reform UK
Mary Page, Green Party
Ben Smith, SDP
The other candidates for Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr are:
Paradigm’s chief legal officer and general counsel said if Roman Storm is found guilty, it could slow future software development in the crypto and fintech industries.
Flawed data has been used repeatedly to dismiss claims about “Asian grooming gangs”, Baroness Louise Casey has said in a new report, as she called for a new national inquiry.
The government has accepted her recommendations to introduce compulsory collection of ethnicity and nationality data for all suspects in grooming cases, and for a review of police records to launch new criminal investigations into historical child sexual exploitation cases.
Image: Baroness Louise Casey carried out the review. Pic: PA
The crossbench peer has produced an audit of sexual abuse carried out by grooming gangs in England and Wales, after she was asked by the prime minister to review new and existing data, including the ethnicity and demographics of these gangs.
In her report, she has warned authorities that children need to be seen “as children” and called for a tightening of the laws around the age of consent so that any penetrative sexual activity with a child under 16 is classified as rape. This is “to reduce uncertainty which adults can exploit to avoid or reduce the punishments that should be imposed for their crimes”, she added.
Baroness Casey said: “Despite the age of consent being 16, we have found too many examples of child sexual exploitation criminal cases being dropped or downgraded from rape to lesser charges where a 13 to 15-year-old had been ‘in love with’ or ‘had consented to’ sex with the perpetrator.”
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3:18
Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The peer has called for a nationwide probe into the exploitation of children by gangs of men.
She has not recommended another over-arching inquiry of the kind conducted by Professor Alexis Jay, and suggests the national probe should be time-limited.
The national inquiry will direct local investigations and hold institutions to account for past failures.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the inquiry’s “purpose is to challenge what the audit describes as continued denial, resistance and legal wrangling among local agencies”.
On the issue of ethnicity, Baroness Casey said police data was not sufficient to draw conclusions as it had been “shied away from”, and is still not recorded for two-thirds of perpetrators.
‘Flawed data’
However, having examined local data in three police force areas, she found “disproportionate numbers of men from Asian ethnic backgrounds amongst suspects for group-based child sexual exploitation, as well as in the significant number of perpetrators of Asian ethnicity identified in local reviews and high-profile child sexual exploitation prosecutions across the country, to at least warrant further examination”.
She added: “Despite reviews, reports and inquiries raising questions about men from Asian or Pakistani backgrounds grooming and sexually exploiting young white girls, the system has consistently failed to fully acknowledge this or collect accurate data so it can be examined effectively.
“Instead, flawed data is used repeatedly to dismiss claims about ‘Asian grooming gangs’ as sensationalised, biased or untrue.
“This does a disservice to victims and indeed all law-abiding people in Asian communities and plays into the hands of those who want to exploit it to sow division.”
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3:07
From January: Grooming gangs: What happened?
The baroness hit out at the failure of policing data and intelligence for having multiple systems which do not communicate with each other.
She also criticised “an ambivalent attitude to adolescent girls both in society and in the culture of many organisations”, too often judging them as adults.
‘Deep-rooted failure’
Responding to Baroness Casey’s review, Ms Yvette Cooper told the House of Commons: “The findings of her audit are damning.
“At its heart, she identifies a deep-rooted failure to treat children as children. A continued failure to protect children and teenage girls from rape, from exploitation, and serious violence.
She added: “Baroness Casey found ‘blindness, ignorance, prejudice, defensiveness and even good but misdirected intentions’ all played a part in this collective failure.”
Ms Cooper said she will take immediate action on all 12 recommendations from the report, adding: “We cannot afford more wasted years repeating the same mistakes or shouting at each other across this House rather than delivering real change.”
Image: Home Secretary Yvette Cooper responded to the report. Pic: PA
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said: “After months of pressure, the prime minister has finally accepted our calls for a full statutory national inquiry into the grooming gangs.
“We must remember that this is not a victory for politicians, especially the ones like the home secretary, who had to be dragged to this position, or the prime minister. This is a victory for the survivors who have been calling for this for years.”
Ms Badenoch added: “The prime minister’s handling of this scandal is an extraordinary failure of leadership. His judgement has once again been found wanting.
“Since he became prime minister, he and the home secretary dismissed calls for an inquiry because they did not want to cause a stir.
“They accused those of us demanding justice for the victims of this scandal as, and I quote, ‘jumping on a far right bandwagon’, a claim the prime minister’s official spokesman restated this weekend – shameful.”
The government has promised new laws to protect children and support victims so they “stop being blamed for the crimes committed against them”.
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