Nigel Farage’s Reform MP Sarah Pochin bankrolled by waste boss who did jail time over worker crush death

Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin has accepted a £6,000 donation from a waste firm boss who served jail time following an employee's death, it has emerged.

Jonathan Gaskell, 54, was imprisoned in 2018 after Zbigniew Galka, a 39-year-old Polish national, was crushed to death while clearing a blockage in a waste compressing machine at Gaskells Waste Services in Bootle, Liverpool, in 2010. Gaskell admitted breaching health and safety law and was handed an eight-month sentence. His firm also pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety Act and was fined £700,000, later reduced to £650,000.

A joint Health and Safety Executive probe found the machine allowed workers to enter while operating but a safety system had been disabled two months earlier. The investigation revealed Gaskell's North West Ltd operated the machine dangerously for up to five years after Galka's death, and was ordered to pay approximately £100,000 in costs.

Galka suffered haemorrhaging, shock and severe traumatic injury and died on his way to hospital.

This is not Gaskell's first brush with the law. He was also locked up in 2013 for four months at Preston Crown Court after paying to have driving licence points wiped in a scam involving a corrupt court official.

Ex-magistrate Pochin, the Runcorn and Helsby MP and Reform's first female MP, accepted the donation in May. Her registered interests show the entry reads "Donation to support the Parliamentary Office of Sarah Pochin MP."

The donation comes despite Pochin's recent public stance on workers' rights. In September last year, she attacked the government's workers rights bill on social media, stating "The so-called Workers Rights Bill is nothing more than a jobs killer."

Last year, Pochin boasted that "it was an honour to serve a community of hard-working people who just want fairness."