'Vengeful' ex-press secretary fleeced UKIP MEP out of £3,000 and went on Harrods spending spree after disapproving of his policies

Yugoslavian J asna Badzak, 42, worked as a researcher for Gerard Batten

She claimed she had not received £2,500 in fees from European Parliament

But records showed she had gone shopping in Gucci and Harrods

She was today spared jail to avoid ‘wrecking her son’s life’

Yugoslavian Jasna Badzak duped a UKIP Euro MP out of £3,000 to go on a shopping spree after disapproving of his policies

A former press secretary duped a UKIP Euro MP out of £3,000 to go on a shopping spree after disapproving of his policies.



Yugoslavian J asna Badzak, 42, who worked as a self-employed researcher for MEP Gerard Batten, claimed she had not received £2,500 in fees from the European Parliament.



Badzak told Mr Batten that she was too poor to travel to work, having forged online bank statements to suggest the payment had not been made.



But records showed she had embarked on spending sprees in Gucci and Harrods, Southwark Crown Court heard.



She was today spared jail to avoid ‘wrecking her son’s life’.

Badzak, whose relatives died in Nazi concentration camps, said her relationship with the politician deteriorated after she was asked to work on a policy document entitled ‘dismantling multiculturalism’ in February 2011.

The divorced mother-of-one complained to UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, who she claims gave Mr Batten a ‘dressing down’.

Mr Batten responded by ordering her never to contact Mr Farage again, Badzak told the court.



The politician, who is also the UKIP MEPs Chief Whip, insisted he was not aware Badzak was unhappy at work.



He loaned her the apparently outstanding wages, together with a separate £500, thinking she would repay him once after receiving the cash from the European Parliament.



But Badzak only offered to reimburse Mr Batten after police began an investigation and has yet to pay a penny back to the MEP.



Judge Michael Gledhill QC told Badzak that she would have been jailed for a year had she not been the sole carer for her 15-year-old son, who is studying his GCSEs.



Instead, he suspended her 12-month month prison sentence for two years to ‘avoid wrecking her son’s life’.

Sentencing, Judge Gledhill told her: ‘In November 2011 you were taken on by Gerard Batten on a three-month contract and you were to be paid by the European Parliament.

‘You knew there would be a delay in payments and you were not to be paid until January. In fact, the European Parliament paid people earlier than expected in December.



‘You doctored your online bank statement with your NatWest account by removing the £2,500 payment so someone looking at the statement would think it had not been paid.



‘That was flagrant dishonesty.



‘In due course Mr Batten was good enough to give you another three-month contract and you threw that back in his face by continuing the lie.



‘By the end of the period he realised you were not working together as satisfactorily as he had hoped when he decided not to issue another three-month contract.

‘What did you do? You then took him to an employment tribunal and lost those proceedings.



‘You reported him to the police for fraud, who investigated and took no further action. You issued high court proceedings against him as well.

‘You did that to deflect attention from your own dishonesty by mounting a wholesale attack on his character.

‘He said he felt he was on trial and that was your doing.

‘I am going to suspend the sentence only because of your son. He is perfectly innocent of any wrongdoing and I’m not going to wreck his life by sending his mother to prison.



Badzak, whose relatives died in Nazi concentration camps, said her relationship with the politician deteriorated after she was asked to work on a policy document entitled ¿dismantling multiculturalism¿ in February 2011

‘If that were not the case you would be going to prison for 12 months.

‘Members of parliament are vulnerable to people such as yourself who are bent on vengeance.’

To ‘bring home the seriousness’ of Badzak’s crimes, Judge Gledhill also ordered she will be subject to a four-month curfew between 8pm and 6am.



She must also pay £500 in court costs. Badzak showed no emotion as the sentence was passed.



Badzak - a former Tory general election candidate who fled war-torn Yugoslavia 20 years ago - claimed Mr Batten was exposed meeting deputy leader of far-right group, English Defence League, on numerous occasions by anti-fascism magazine, Searchlight.

Gerard Batten, who is also the UKIP MEPs Chief Whip, insisted he was not aware Badzak was unhappy at work

She also told in evidence how the MEP gleefully ‘jumped around the office’ when he was interviewed by reporters about the battle to extradite Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange.



He was ‘over the moon’ to be quoted in stories about the controversial Swede, who is remains holed up at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and insisted the UKIP website should be informed of his ‘success’ she claimed.



Mr Batten enjoyed a string of interviews with journalists including John Pilger, as well as airtime on CNN, NBC and French TV.



‘He was over the moon, he couldn’t stop talking about it’, Badzak told jurors.

Badzak was arrested in November 2011, just months after she lost a case against Mr Batten at an employment tribunal, which is pending an appeal.

She insisted she did not forge any bank statements to indicate the payments had not been received and denied telling the politician she was in ‘financial straits’.



Despite having an MBA qualification, she claimed she was ‘absolutely useless’ with money and ‘never knew what was in her bank account.’

Arlette Piercy, defending Badzak, told the court that she suffered from significant health problems including depression, which had been exacerbated as a result of the proceedings.



The only thing Mr Batten did not accept was the contact between him and members of the EDL, Ms Piercy said.

She added: ‘At the end of the day, there is not a great disagreement between the defence and prosecution witness as to what the parameters of the agenda were.’

