Former Brent councillor banned over ‘cash-for-homes’ scandal plans to appeal decision

Atiq Malik, ex-Conservative representative for Queensbury, vows to fight ban

A controversial politician who has been banned by the Standards Board for England (SBE) from standing as a councillor for five years plans to lodge an appeal.

Atiq Malik, who served as a Conservative councillor for the Queensbury ward between 2006 and 2010, was disqualified after he duped a resident into paying him �3,000 in exchange for a council house.

Last week, a SBE hearing, which he had not attended, were told the 48-year-old gave Shahzad Akhtar the impression that as a councillor he would be able to obtain a council flat for him in Colindale in exchange for money.

The father-of-four, controversially defected from the Conservative Party to the Democratic Conservative Group, a splinter party he set up with fellow former Tory ward councillor Robert Dunwell, and has blogged on a website that he believed Sharia Law should be an option in the UK.

Under the law, which is enforced in several Muslim countries, unmarried women who had sex or married woman who have affairs should be whipped.

He told the Times: “I have done nothing wrong. I will be appealing the decision.”