Former Tory MP admits bypassing Gamstop self-exclusion
Katie Wallis pleaded guilty to altering a passport image to beat a gambling self-exclusion block, Cardiff Crown Court heard, and received a nine-month conditional discharge.
Former Conservative MP Katie Wallis has admitted digitally altering the date on an image of her passport to circumvent a gambling self-exclusion scheme and access a betting site, Cardiff Crown Court heard, as first reported by Wales Online and covered by iGaming Business.
Wallis represented Bridgend between 2019 and 2024 and was previously known as Jamie Wallis. An offence under the Computer Misuse Act formed the basis of her guilty plea, and prosecutors subsequently dropped two separate counts relating to possession of a false passport once that alternative plea was accepted.
The court heard that Wallis had struggled with gambling and had already used Gamstop, the scheme letting customers lock themselves out of UK-licensed betting sites, to self-exclude. In April 2022, while in what prosecutor Richard Posner described as "acute psychiatric distress", she used her own computer to change the date on an image of her passport and used it to get past the restriction, depositing money on a gambling site that was subsequently lost.
No one else suffered financial loss, the court heard, and the passport itself was genuine rather than tampered with. Wallis had not attempted to use anyone else's identity. She has since reapplied to be blocked from gambling sites.
Wallis received a nine-month conditional discharge, meaning she faces no further punishment provided she commits no further offences in that period. The judge warned that any repeat offence within the nine months could see the matter resentenced.
The judge described the offence as a "single impulsive" act carried out during a "period of psychological distress" and accepted that Wallis had offered "compelling personal mitigation".
According to the BBC, Wallis's defence pointed to a serious mental disorder brought on by a turbulent period in her life, during which she disclosed being transgender in office, went through a family split, and spoke publicly about having been raped. Prosecutors separately noted that she had helped the case reach its conclusion.
In a written plea, Wallis acknowledged having had a "problem with gambling", stating that "the defendant has not repeated this conduct" and that the issue "has not given rise to any further offending and is no longer a feature of her life".
The case adds Wallis to a growing list of political figures caught up in gambling-related offences. Two weeks earlier, three people linked to the Conservative Party were sentenced under Section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005 over an election betting scandal. Former director of campaigning Anthony Lee, his wife and Conservative candidate Laura Lee, and former party staffer Amy Hind all received suspended sentences in that case.