DOUGLAS Carswell has defended his decision to accept a £20,000 donation from a former MEP who was ordered to pay back cash following an antifraud probe.

Mr Carswell received the cash from Derek Clark in the run-up to the Clacton by-election in October.

The former UKIP MEP paid back £31,800 to the European Parliament in 2012 after an investigation into payments to UKIP staff.

Cash meant for European Parliament office staff was diverted to party workers based in the UK.

At the time, UKIP leader Nigel Farage said there had not been a systematic attempt to defraud the EU by his party and that there had been “no personal gain from public money”.

Mr Carswell has still come in for criticism in the national press for accepting cash from Mr Clark.

But he told the Gazette: “It’s a nonsense story.

“When I started to face a byelection, I made an appeal for funding to pay for leaflets and I got hundreds of local people and individuals around the country who thought ‘Yes, we would like to make a donation’.

“One of those individuals was this chap, who happens to previously have been an MEP.

“I thought it only right to put any big sums into the Register of Members’ Interests.”

Mr Carswell said the £20,000 donation had been registered in October, but claimed that the “Labour-supporting Daily Mirror” was “making mischief”

to deflect allegations made against former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who was allegedly filmed by reporters offering his services to a private company for cash.

Mr Carswell added: “The fact is that most of my by-election funding came from local people – small donations of £20 here and a cheque there.

“These are ordinary people who wanted to help me take on the big corporate parties.”