Former Tory MP Craig Williams pleads guilty to cheating at gambling with election bets

Former Tory MP Craig Williams pleads guilty to cheating at gambling with election bets

A close aide to the former prime minister Rishi Sunak has pleaded guilty to cheating at gambling with bets on the date of the 2024 general election.

Craig Williams, 41, who was Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire and for Cardiff North, admitted using confidential information to place bets on the timing of the poll.

He was part of Sunak’s inner circle, having been appointed to be the former prime minister’s parliamentary private secretary, and he attended a series of planning meetings in Downing Street ahead of the 2024 election.

Williams, of Llanfair Caereinion, Powys, entered his guilty plea at a hearing at Southwark crown court on Monday. He had bet £250, £100, and £22.50 on the election date, prosecutors said.

After the Guardian first broke the scandal, Williams admitted making a “huge error of judgment” when confronted over a £100 bet.

The prosecutor Zoe Johnson KC said three further cheating charges, which Williams denies, would be dropped when he was sentenced.

Amy Hind, 35, the wife of the Conservative deputy digital director Anthony Hind, also pleaded guilty to cheating regarding the date of the election. She had placed bets of £10, £5, and £20 on the date of the poll, before on 13 May 2024 attempting to stake £767 and £700 on a July poll.

Those attempts failed, the court heard, and she attempted to place a £700 bet the following day before successfully placing a £100 bet on a July election, at odds of 11-1.

A separate charge against her husband, 37, that he had cheated at gambling by passing information to his wife, was dropped by prosecutors.

Hind is due to be sentenced on 23 October.

Also at the hearing on Monday, 13 co-defendants pleaded not guilty to cheating at gambling in relation to bets on the 2024 election.

Williams will not be sentenced until co-defendants have stood trial.