LABOUR'S newly-selected parliamentary candidate for Worcester should be removed from the role already, says the party's former MP for the city – after a damning newspaper article which called her "a fantasist who has been placed under 14 extended civil restraint orders by the High Court".

An article in the Sunday Times today says that Mandy Richards – Labour's new parliamentary candidate for Worcester – is "banned from bringing court actions without a judge’s permission after false and vexatious claims against MI5, MI6, the Metropolitan police, the army, Thames Water, her gas, electricity and broadband suppliers, Royal Mail, Hackney council, her GP and the freeholder of her flat".

The Times article claims that Miss Richards "said the organisations placed her under surveillance, tampered with her car and bicycle, interfered with her mail, invaded her home or failed to protect her from attempts to poison her because of her political views. The claims were dismissed as 'totally without merit' and most of the defendants were granted restraint orders barring new claims."

After the publication of the Sunday Times article, Mike Foster, Labour MP for Worcester from 1997 to 2010, tweeted: "After this revelation she cannot be Labour candidate for Worcester. Open goal for the Tories."

The Worcester constituency, currently held by Conservative Robin Walker, is seen as a marginal seat.

The Sunday Times article continued: "Richards was a Labour candidate in the 2016 London assembly election and also brought a High Court petition to challenge the result, alleging a conspiracy to cheat her involving the returning officer and Progress, Labour’s centrist group.

"In a two-day hearing, she said “state-sponsored organised crime” in the case had “the potential to trigger a major national public scandal” and forced 13 witnesses, including her MP, the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, to give evidence in person.

"Abbott said she was an “obsessive” whose claims about the election “cannot be true”.

"Dismissing Richards’s case, the election commissioner, John Bowers QC, said she had pursued “conspiracy hypotheses” that were “totally unfounded”. He also criticised her for not turning up to court on time. Her actions are estimated to have cost taxpayers £500,000 in court time and legal fees."

The Worcester News contacted Miss Richards for a comment in response to the Sunday Times article but she directed us to the Labour press office. However, nobody at the party's press office would provide a comment.