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Ex-councillor avoids jail term over community payback breach

MacLeod was the youngest ever Highland Council councillor
MacLeod was the youngest ever Highland Council councillor

A former councillor who fiddled his election expenses has been spared jail for a second time after failing to carry out his community service.

But Alex MacLeod was warned that if he does not complete the new unpaid work order he will end up behind bars.

The 22-year-old was set an eight-month deadline to carry out 200 hours of community service when he appeared at Tain Sheriff Court yesterday.

MacLeod – who once worked for former first minister Alex Salmond – splashed out three times the legal maximum on his campaign to win a seat on Highland Council in 2012.

But two years later he appeared in court and admitted falsifying his expenses and conducting his election campaign by fraud.

He was spared a custodial sentence at the time and ordered to carry out 160 hours of community service.

However, he handed himself in to police last month and later appeared in court to admit he had not completed the order.

Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood said yesterday that it was “with some hesitation” he was not sending him to prison.

Instead, he gave MacLeod another chance to complete the order, increased the number of hours he will have to work to 200 and warned him that if he failed to comply he would go to jail.

The sheriff added: “You seem to think the law doesn’t apply to you, but I can assure you it does.”

MacLeod’s agent, solicitor Robert More, told the court that his client had set up his own marketing company but had missed out on “significant funding” as a result of last month’s appearance in court.

He said MacLeod, had “failed to prioritise his commitments as far as the court order is concerned” and had been “somewhat immature” in the ways of the court and not had understood the seriousness of missing appointments for unpaid work.

Mr More added: “He recognises that the predicament he is in is most precarious.

“He is a profoundly chastened and humbled young man.”

Outside the court, MacLeod, of 8 Hay Place, Elgin, said: “I understand full well the seriousness of the matter.

“I feel a deep sense of regret about my actions and now I want to complete the order and move on from this.”

When he was elected to the Caithness Landward ward MacLeod was Scotland’s youngest councillor, and he had also worked for Mr Salmond for 10 months after leaving Tain Royal Academy

He committed election fraud by altering invoices and failing to submit others between March 22 and May 2, 2012.

Following his conviction he was barred from a political career as well as a legal one, having been accepted to study law.

He also resigned from the SNP.

An investigation following an anonymous tip-off revealed that having assured council officials that he only spent £1,162, he had run-up bills totalling £3,796.28.

After his initial sentencing, MacLeod delivered a speech on the steps of Inverness Sheriff Court where he said he was looking forward “to the opportunity to repay the significant debt I owe to society and offer my constituents closure”.

He added: “This was a crime against the public and the sentence of doing work for the public fits the crime.”

At his court appearance last month Sheriff Fleetwood reminded MacLeod of the comments he made last year.

MacLeod will return to court on August 18 for a review of his order.