Fifth person heads to Crown Court over charges by police investigating Northampton Borough Council £10.25million football club loan

A fifth person will appear at Northampton Crown Court next month following police investigation into the disappearance of money from a £13.5 million Borough Council loan to Northampton Town Football Club.

Nirav Vinodray Sheth, aged 47, appeared at Northampton Magistrates' Court on Monday (September 6) regarding offences relating to a donation made to Northampton South Conservative Association in 2014.

Mr Sheth, of Uppingham Avenue, Stanmore, did not enter a plea and was remanded on unconditional bail to appear at Northampton Crown Court on October 6 alongside four others.

No plea was entered on behalf of 60-year-old Nutan Bhimjiyani and Sharad Bhimjiyani, aged 65, both of Headstone Lane, Harrow, at a hearing last month.

Leonard Western, aged 71, of Holmside Rise, South Oxley, Watford, pleaded not guilty while the solicitor for Gary Platt, aged 65, of West Drive, Harrow, indicated his client would also plead not guilty.

All five are charged with “without reasonable cause, being the principal donor of a donation of more than £500 to a registered party, namely Northampton South Conservative Association, failed to ensure that, at the time when the donation was received by the party, the party was given all such details in respect of the person treated as making the recordable donation as were required by virtue of paragraph 2 or 2A of Schedule 6 to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.”

The police probe into what became of £10.25m of the cash loaned to Northampton Town to fund building a new East Stand at Sixfields is now nearing the end of its sixth year and has cost more than £1.5m.

A 65-year-old man was last month fined £6,000 for donating to the campaign fund of former Northampton MP and borough council leader David Mackintosh in 2014 without disclosing where the money came from.

Northampton magistrates heard that Alan Mayfield had got the £10,000 from his friend, Howard Grossman.

Mr Mayfield, of Hill Farm Road, Chalfont St Peter, was fined £6,000 in a case described as the first of its kind in the UK.