admitted making a “huge error of judgment”<\/a> by betting on the date of the election just days before Sunak called it.<\/p>\nHe served as Sunak’s parliamentary private secretary, which ensured he was part of the then-PM’s inner circle.<\/p>\n
Williams, of Llanfair Caereinion, Welshpool, Powys, entered his guilty plea at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on Monday.<\/p>\n
Prosecutor Zoe Johnson KC said three further cheating charges, which Williams denies, will be dropped when he is sentenced.<\/p>\n
She said Williams, a member of the Privy Council, was “given a privileged position, he was party to a number of meetings in both Downing Street and Conservative headquarters when the date of the general election was discussed”.<\/p>\n
Johnson also said: “He has now accepted by his plea that he used highly sensitive and confidential information to place bets and to profit.”<\/p>\n
Williams was among 15 people who were charged with betting offences by the Gambling Commission.<\/p>\n
The charges came after “Operation Scott” was launched to investigate gambling by politicians and employees of the Conservative Party in the lead-up to the 2024 general election.<\/p>\n
Amy Hind, 35, has also pleaded guilty to cheating on the date of the election.<\/p>\n
She had placed bets of \u00a310, \u00a35, and \u00a320 on the date of the election before attempting on 13 May 2024 to stake \u00a3767 and \u00a3700 on a July poll.<\/p>\n
The court heard those attempts failed before she ultimately successfully placed a \u00a3100 bet on a July election, at odds of 11-1.<\/p>\n
A separate charge against her husband Anthony Hind, 37, that he had cheated at gambling by passing information to his wife was then dropped by prosecutors.<\/p>\n
Amy Hind is due to be sentenced on 23 October.<\/p>\n
Williams will not be sentenced until co-defendants have stood trial.<\/p>\n
Also at the hearing on Monday, 12 co-defendants pleaded not guilty to cheating at gambling in relation to bets on the 2024 election.<\/p>\n
Trials have been set for September 2027 and January 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Conservative MP Craig Williams has pleaded guilty to cheating at gambling by placing bets on the date…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":664650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-664649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/664650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}