Reform UK councillor George Finch at a ‘Britain is Lawless’ event in August. Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty
Reform’s boy wonder – 19-year-old George Finch, the youngest council leader in British history – is being investigated for alleged contempt of court in an upcoming child rape case.
Finch, the leader of Warwickshire county council, told one of Reform UK’s “Britain is Lawless” events in Westminster this August that “a 13-year-old girl has been raped by two asylum seekers” before the accused had faced trial by jury. The far-right activist Tommy Robinson was jailed when he committed contempt in relation to a similar trial at Leeds in 2018.
The county council has appointed an external solicitor to investigate its own boss about those comments because people complained they may have breached the council’s code of conduct.
John Sweeney
If a breach of the code is found to have been committed, the teenager will be under pressure to stand down – adding to the woes of Nigel Farage, who is under fire for claims that he made neo-Nazi remarks when at school and for his long-term friendship with Reform’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, jailed last month for 10 and a half years for taking bribes from a Russian spy.
Reform runs a minority administration in Warwickshire, dependent on unstated Tory support, and Finch looks vulnerable if the independent investigation finds fault with his conduct.
Finch, born in 2006, was selected as deputy leader of the council this May, but stepped up when fellow Reform councillor Rob Howard resigned the next month for health reasons. In the flesh, running cabinet at Warwick Shire Hall, he is dapper, smooth and cocksure. He has got into rows over not allowing a Green councillor to speak, over calling universities a “conveyor belt for socialist wokeism” and over a move to cut primary schoolchildren’s rights to free buses.
The gossip inside Reform is that he is a protege of Nigel Farage, a little like Spike in Tom and Jerry saying: “Dat’s my boy.”
But he is now under scrutiny for his reaction to Warwickshire police charging two men with offences related to the rape of a child aged under 13 in Nuneaton this July. On his X/Twitter and Facebook accounts, he posted a letter headed with the Warwickshire county council logo sent to the then home secretary, Yvette Cooper, the chief constable of Warwickshire police, Alex Franklin-Smith, and county council chief executive Monica Fogarty.
The moment the jury has given its verdict and justice has been done, you can have your say. Finch appears to have forgotten this, perhaps by virtue of his youth and lack of experience.
Unlike Finch, the Nerve is not identifying the two accused. Since the Reform conference in August, one of them has changed his plea to guilty; the second has not.
Finch’s comments have the potential to jeopardise a fair trial and that, of course, would harm the victim and her family – and waste a huge amount of public money. The Magna Carta in 1215 sets out: “No free man shall be imprisoned except by the lawful judgment of his equals.”
Most people know that after someone has been charged for a serious offence, you must take care not to publish or say anything in the public square that could prejudice the criminal proceedings. The moment the jury has given its verdict and justice has been done, you can have your say. Finch appears to have forgotten this, perhaps by virtue of his youth and lack of experience.
But Finch is the leader of Warwickshire county council, in charge of assets worth £1.5bn. Critics say it was wrong for Reform to appoint a teenager with no council experience to such a high-profile role. Finch says they are “ageist”.
His controversial remarks are still up on a YouTube video of the “Britain is Lawless” event held on 4 August. When Farage introduced Finch, Reform’s leader showed he was aware of the correct way to handle the issue: “It is not, as I've stated already, in any way at all, a contempt of court for the British public to know the identity of those who allegedly have committed serious crimes.” (My italics.)
But Finch did not follow his leader. The 19-year-old head of the county council, running a half-billion-pound budget, told the conference: “I contacted the council CEO to inform her that I wished to speak to Warwickshire police, to urge them to release the immigration status of the criminal.”
“Alleged criminal” is correct. “Criminal” on its own could prejudice a jury trial and is, potentially, a contempt of court, a crime in its own right that can lead to a fine or prison sentence.
Finch goes on to quote an email he sent to Fogarty “regarding the 12-year-old girl who was raped by an asylum seeker who lives in a HMO in Stockingford in Nuneaton, my hometown”. This comment, too, would appear to prejudge the issue, again arguably making for a contempt of court.
Finch then goes on to name the second defendant who was charged after the first man: “Our communities are at a breaking point, and that's why we need Reform to change things. We are the last line of defence against the blob, the cover-ups of the councils, and we have to fight every step of the way against this blob. And this is what we're doing on Warwickshire county council. It has to stop. A 13-year-old girl has been raped by two asylum seekers, and I was told that if I release this I would be in contempt of court. And I cannot release this due to this phrase ‘community cohesion’”.
Finch is wrong about that. The problem is not “the blob” or “community cohesion” but a potential contempt of court, in that, by claiming the rape is a fact before the jury trial, he may have endangered the course of justice.
Farage has questions of his own to answer. At the end of the conference, a journalist from the Guardian asked him whether he was concerned that Finch had potentially committed a contempt of court. “No,” he snapped. Then he commented: “George, thank you very much indeed, and well done for exposing the truth – threatened, basically threatened, and told the public do not deserve to know the truth.”
The Nerve approached Farage and Finch for comment but neither replied.
George Finch has been lionised by Reform UK as representing the future of British youth. Pity he does not appear to understand trial by jury, which has been the bedrock of English common law since 1215. Nor, it seems, does his master, Nigel Farage.