IPCC Confirm Investigation Into North Wales Police & Crime Commissioner

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has confirmed it is investigating allegations on where Winston Roddick was living when he was elected PCC for North Wales.

Election rules state that the candidate should be living in the area he or she is standing for, you can view the ‘rule book’ PDF here. It states:

“To be able to stand as a candidate at a Police and Crime Commissioner election in England and Wales you must be registered as a local government elector in a local authority area that is within the police area in which you wish to stand, both at the time of your nomination and on polling day”

Mr Roddick had stated he was living in Caernarfon, however the current allegations (made by the Mail On Sunday here) state that he was infact living in Cardiff which if true could be a breech of the electoral rules.

Mr Roddick was elected Police & Crime Commissioner (PCC) in November however in reality the people of Wrexham overwhelmingly rejected the idea of a PCC. To review, Mr Roddick had 44% of the votes cast in the election, but to give this context only 6.8% of the total electorate of North Wales, with only 12% of Wrexhamites turning out to vote in the election.

The role pays £70,000 per year for four years, so a total of £280,000. We have tried to decipher what would happen if Mr Roddick loses the role, as a deputy has not yet been appointed it looks likely the role could be filled by someone unelected to the position.

Mr Roddick’s campaign site www.winston4pcc.com now shows a default server page, his @winston4pcc twitter account is also dormant with the last tweet stating “This account is no longer operational. Follow @opccnw if you want to know more about my work as North Wales Police and Crime Comissioner“. Sadly the suggested @opccnw does not exist as the real one is @NorthWalesPCC.

Interestingly the PCC’s official website has a monthly expenses breakdown page, viewable here, however it has either not been updated for eight months or there has not been any expenses for eight months.

You can revisit our coverage of the elections:

• The only full report of the only Q&A session held by all candidates when they visited Wrexham by clicking here.
• Mirroring our local election coverage we conducted a Q&A’s with candidates, read it by clicking here.
• The full ‘live blog’ of election day by clicking here.