A failed UKIP candidate who fled to Pakistan after she was convicted of calling a Tesco worker a “f***ing foreigner” has been jailed in absence.

Sam Naz, 34, bombarded Mohammed Watfa with racist vitriol two months before finishing fifth in her bid to oust Zac Goldsmith as MP for Richmond Park in the 2015 General Election.

Trolley collector Mr Watfa, 49, had spotted Naz being attacked by another shopper at Tesco’s Leyton High Road branch and went over to see if she needed any help, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.

Naz, of High Street, Richmond, claimed she had been throttled by the male customer, who was never traced, and shoved into a parked car on March 22, 2015.

She then lost her temper and turned on Mr Watfa after the man sped off, calling him a “f***ing b***ard”, a “f***ing foreigner” and shouting: “What kind of f***ing foreigner are you?”

Naz insisted throughout three trials that Mr Watfa was the aggressor, who sparked the row by helping her assailant flee before telling her: “you f***ing deserved it”.

The first jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court failed to reach verdicts before she was convicted and fined £1,500 at the same court following a retrial last September.

But she appealed and the conviction was quashed in February this year.

She stood trial for a third time last month and was again found guilty of racially aggravated intentional harassment.

Blackfriars Crown Court heard she has since flown to Pakistan for one of her daughters to receive medical treatment.

Naz’s barrister, Rupert Russell, said: “She is not happy with the treatment in the UK.

However, Judge Mr Recorder Dafydd Enoch QC branded the stunt a “delaying tactic”.

“So, it has got nothing to do with the fact that she is facing a jail sentence today?” he asked.

When Mr Russell suggested Naz would not be staying abroad and was “not a flight risk”, the judge added: “That is exactly what she has done, I take the view that this is a blatant attempt to avoid the inevitable.”

After making it clear her sentence would not be increased by her “deliberate absence”, the judge jailed her for three months for her “sustained, deliberate and cruel racist tirade”.

Jurors heard Naz initially told officers the allegations were part of: “a Muslim IS conspiracy” from within Walthamstow's Asian community.

She also berated the investigating officer for “believing a bunch of terrorists over me”, the court heard.

Addressing Naz as if she were present, the judge said: “You set yourself up and promoted yourself as someone who wanted to and deserved to represent the people of this country in Parliament.

“By so doing, you had a public responsibility to behave decently and appropriately, particularly in public.

“The people who you abused on this day in public were the very people whose votes you were courting.

“The idea that you could represent such people in Parliament is difficult to swallow and I would have thought that no self-respecting political party would wish to have its interests represented by you in the future given the evidence we have heard in this trial and the resultant conviction.

"You have, in my judgement, displayed publicly a persona which is bigoted and cruel.

“There is not one iota of humility in you.”