Ex-UUP man denies corruption

Alastair Patterson is a former UUP chief executive

Two men including a former electoral officer have denied conning thousands of pounds out of the Northern Ireland Electoral Office.

Alastair Patterson, 59, of Parkanaur Road, Castlecaulfield, and Edmund Wiltshire, 61, of Reaghan Road, Dunmullan near Omagh, deny 18 corruption charges.

Mr Patterson, a former Ulster Unionist Party chief executive, also denied charges of theft, forgery and false accounting.

The judge at Dungannon Crown Court adjourned the case until the new year.

'Cash and alcohol'

Mr Wiltshire denied a total of 11 corruption charges, allegedly bribing Mr Patterson and other electoral officers with cash and alcohol to win the contracts to collect ballot boxes and deliver screens to various polling stations.

The charges include alleged corruption in relation to the ballot box and screen contracts for general elections, European elections, assembly elections and the referendum on the Good Friday Agreement.

In the indictment, it is alleged that Mr Wiltshire initially bribed Mr Patterson with £30 in cash and a bottle of vodka for the contract for the 1987 general election.

It alleges that by the assembly election in 1998, Mr Patterson was receiving a bribe of £1,000 in cash.

Mr Patterson's defence QC told the judge on Friday that "substantial legal issues" needed to be addressed before any trial date could be set.

The pair were released on continuing bail by the judge, who adjourned the case until the new year when the legal applications and arguments will be heard.

Before he was the UUP's chief executive, Mr Patterson was best known as the returning officer who declared IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands's victory in the Fermanagh-South Tyrone Westminster election in 1981.