THE Liberal Democrat candidate for Monmouth has complained to the police after a bogus social media account in her name falsely claimed she had received a huge sum of money from an unknown source.

Alison Willott fears the fake account’s claims may be used to discredit her in the run-up to polling day, on December 12.

Screenshots sent to Ms Willott by a local Liberal Democrat party member show another ‘Alison Willott’ – using her profile picture – enquiring about a United Kingdom Resources Grant, supported by the World Bank, which had sent her £100,000 in cash.

One of the alleged fake text claiming to be from Alison Willott

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The Lib Dem candidate was astonished by the false claims, saying: “The language sounds like one of those overseas scams. I rang the police the same day. They are taking it seriously – but I have difficulty wondering why [the impostor] has done it.

“It sounds like maybe they were waiting to publicise it next week.”

Ms Willott said she did not believe the bogus account was part of any political conspiracy. But despite this, she found the whole incident “horrid”.

“I was really annoyed – to be honest," she said. "I wouldn’t expect somebody to photo and make a fake account.

“I’d be interested to know if it has happened to anyone else [standing for election].”

Ms Willott said the person who set about creating the fake account could break the law if those claims were publicised as true. The Representation of the People Act 1983 forbids any false statements of fact against a candidate’s personal character or conduct, unless it can be shown that there are reasonable grounds for believing those statements to be true.

As well as reporting the fake account to the police, Ms Willott has reported the incident to Liberal Democrat party and to Monmouthshire’s electoral office.

Gwent Police declined to comment on Ms Willott’s complaint, saying: “In terms of election fraud, in general due to the current ongoing election campaign, we are unable to give, or confirm, any detail around complaints.”

Also running in Monmouth are:

Ian Roy Chandler (Green)

David Thomas Charles Davies (Conservative)

Martyn Ford (Independent)

Hugh Michael Andrew Kocan (Plaid Cymru)

Yvonne Clare Murphy (Labour)