Andy Osborn

Andy Osborn, aged 74, was a Reform UK councillor on Cambridgeshire County Council elected in May 2025 to represent the Roman Bank and Peckover division. On 16 April 2026 he became the first Reform UK elected official to be convicted under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which criminalises false statements about a candidate's personal character or Conduct published with intent to affect an election result.

Osborn, of March, Cambridgeshire, had been chairman of the North East Cambridgeshire Reform Party. Days before the May 2025 poll, a post appeared on a Reform UK Facebook forum claiming that Conservative candidate Samantha Hoy had worked in care but "was sacked for fraud." Osborn claimed in court that his account had been hacked; District Judge Nina Tempia, sitting at Westminster Magistrates' Court, dismissed that defence and convicted him. He was ordered to pay £1,800 (£1,000 fine, £400 costs, £400 surcharge).

The conviction automatically vacated his council seat and triggers a by-election. The case is the first local government Section 106 prosecution to result in a conviction since the Phil Woolas precedent of 2010, and arrives in the middle of Reform UK's highest-profile national campaign, sharpening scrutiny of the party's candidate vetting.