Mervyn Barrett is an independent candidate to be Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner (the election is on 15 November 2012).
Highly regarded for his background in crime prevention, commentators wondered where he was getting the money to run such a high-profile and expensive campaign.
On Saturday (20th October), his entire campaign team resigned ahead of a story in Sunday’s Telegraph saying that his campaign
“was being secretly backed by American neo-conservative lobbyists and companies pushing for police privatisation.”
Mr Barrett has denied the allegations but has not responded to questions about who is funding his campaign (nor who helped him buy several thousand Twitter followers a few months ago).
As of this morning, Monday 22nd October, he is reported to be continuing his campaign.
I have collated the different press coverage and reactions via Storify below.
I will continue to edit coverage via Storify, so if you return to this page you can refresh to see latest developments:
