FORMER Colchester MP Sir Bob Russell has been cleared of any wrongdoing after he inadvertently overspent during the General Election campaign last year.

During the campaign, Sir Bob spent £14,129.73.

But two weeks ago The Gazette revealed Electoral Commission guidelines state the town's High Steward should have spent a maximum of £12,944.28, which is £1,185.45 less than his total claim.

At the time, Sir Bob said his agent had been wrongly informed of the spending limit by Colchester Council, but the authority publicly denied all knowledge of issue.

But now the Electoral Commission has weighed in behind Sir Bob, absolving him of error and stating its understanding that the authority is aware of the problem and "exploring" how it occurred.

An Electoral Commission spokesman said: "As part of the commission’s monitoring of candidate expenditure reports at the 2015 UK Parliamentary General Election, the commission queried the expenditure reported as being incurred by Sir Bob Russell during the short campaign with Sir Russell and his agent.

"An error occurred between Sir Bob Russell, his agent and the local authority regarding the expenditure limits listed on his return, which were based on the incorrect limit of 9p per elector, as opposed to 6p per elector.

"It is unclear at this stage how this error came to happen and we are aware that the local authority are exploring this.

"However, based on the information we have received to date we have not seen evidence to suggest that Sir Bob Russell or his agent deliberately delivered an inaccurate return or made a false declaration."

Electoral Commission rules state a candidate filing for a ‘short’ campaign for a ‘borough’ seat – which the Colchester constituency is classed as – can claim a fixed expense of £8,700 plus a variable amount of 6p per elector but Sir Bob's spending was incorrectly submitted as a 'county' seat, with 9p per elector.

A Colchester Council spokesman said: "The Electoral Commission has now been in contact with us and asked that we investigate the circumstances which gave rise to the error with Sir Bob Russell’s election expenses.

"We hope to complete this investigation soon and will publish the results next week."