Mohammed Choudhary reached for the eraser in a desperate effort to hide his involvement in the attempt to rig the Central ward elections in 2004.

But Choudhary's handwriting was all over a postal voting ballot form he had returned to an unsuspecting voter.

He may have thought that he had covered his tracks, but it did not take long for a handwriting expert to link the form to the 49-year-old former First Citizen of Peterborough.

Choudhary, Tariq Mahmood and Maqbool Hussein had tried to rig the election by "hijacking" postal and proxy vote application forms from voters in the Asian and Portuguese communities in the run-up to the Central ward elections, and filled some of them in themselves.

The votes were sent to a number of hub addresses, where the ballot papers would be filled in.

But after the elections a handful of voters started coming forward complaining that their vote had been stolen.

Detective Inspector Ian Tandy, who lead Operation Hooper, said: "The more we looked into it, the more complaints we found. We started visiting the original 15 to 20 voters and they gave us information about other people. It just snowballed. We had a mass of paperwork which on the face of it looked forged."

An analyst and researcher began sifting through the documents and comparing handwriting with other forms used in the election. Before long Choudhary, Mahmood and Hussein's names began cropping up. Forensic handwriting expert Karen Caramiello confirmed the detective's suspicions.

DI Tandy said: "One form we found had been Tippexed out then returned to the original voter. But Choudhary's handwriting was all over it. It suggested that he thought he was going to get caught out. It was such a bodged job of a forgery it was almost farcical."

Special Report: Local election vote riggers jailed
The full story: Three former city Labour party members found guilty of vote rigging have been jailed.
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