No conclusive costs of by-election trial

It’s not possible to determine how much the court case surrounding the Douglas East by-election has cost.

That’s according to the Attorney General’s Chambers which says figures that are currently being bandied about are "wild speculation”.

The case came to a conclusion recently and saw one man receive a prison sentence for the deliberate misuse of the proxy voting system.

Police say the investigation cost them in the region of £11,000 but no definitive figure for the case overall has yet been reached.

Director of prosecutions Stuart Neale says there are too many variables relating to the costs of the case and that he isn’t privy to the funding arrangements for the defence teams and how their bills of costs will be taxed.