A FORMER Scottish Labour minister has been charged with electoral fraud.
Frank McAveety, a senior Glasgow councillor and former council leader, is understood to have been accused of giving a false address when he ran for a seat on the local authority in 2022, The Times reports.
A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said: “A 62-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with fraud offences in the Glasgow area between 2022 and 2024.
“A report will be submitted to the procurator fiscal in due course.”
It is understood that allegations focus on where McAveety said he lived when standing in the 2022 local elections.
Sources told The Times that he claimed to be living at a Glasgow address while actually residing in Paisley.
McAveety was council leader from 1997 until 1999 when he was elected to the Scottish Parliament in the Glasgow Shettleston ward. He served as minister for tourism, culture and sport between 2003 and 2004.
He was sacked by then first-minister Jack McConnell in 2004 after what was dubbed "porky-pie gate", in which the MSP had told parliament he had been detained by government business when in fact he had been eating a pie for lunch.
After losing to the SNP at the 2011 Holyrood elections, McAveety was elected to Glasgow City Council in 2012 and became council leader in 2015 before being unseated by the SNP's Susan Aitken in 2017.
McAveety and Glasgow City Council have been contacted for comment.
