Reform UK's leader on Hampshire county council has been charged with 12 counts of rape and one of distributing indecent images of a child.
George Madgwick, 37, who is a councillor in Portsmouth and leads the Reform group on the council, was a prominent voice linked to recent protests in the town connected to the arrival of asylum seekers on small boats.
A Crown Prosecution Service statement said the charges followed a police investigation into allegations connected to four complainants aged 16 and 17 at the time, and were alleged to have taken place in Portsmouth and Wales between 2008 and 2021.
