BNP facing defeat in election battle

Jul 21 2006 By Neil Elkes, Birmingham Mail

BIRMINGHAM'S first British National Party councillor faces the double whammy of a £5,000 legal bill and losing her Kingstanding seat.

A High Court hearing scheduled for next Wednesday is expected to announce that Coun Sharon Ebanks should be replaced after being wrongly declared the winner on May 4.

The court is expected to back the city council's view that votes were miscounted and that Labour's Catherine Grundy should have won the seat along with Coun Zoe Hopkins - with the Labour pair polling 500 votes each more than their BNP rival.

Labour Party bosses expect the court hearing to rule in Ms Grundy's favour, leaving her free to be sworn in as a councillor for Kingstanding by the end of next week.

Ms Grundy said: "We will get the result that needed to be declared on the night but unfortunately wasn't - all we had to do was to go through the legal process."

The BNP is still challenging the result and was landed with £5,000 court costs after calling an emergency hearing this week.

Mr Justice Cooke said his inquiry was into the miscount and, as the BNP's allegations of fraud need to be investigated by police, Coun Ebanks had wasted the court's time.

BNP spokesman Simon Darby said: "That is the price of justice and we expected a bill. Unfortunately, the judge could not deal with our complaint so now we'll wait for the police inquiry and see if they turn up something."

Mr Darby called for an inquiry, and added: "The people of Kingstanding believe that Sharon should be their councillor and that Labour have imposed this result on them."

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