George Madgwick has been charged with 35 offences against four victims, including 12 counts of rape. The Crown Prosecution Service said the case involves alleged offences said to have taken place between 2008 and 2021 in Portsmouth and Wales.
Madgwick is 37 years old and from the Anchorage Park area of Portsmouth. He leads the Reform UK group on Hampshire County Council, putting a serving local political figure before Portsmouth Magistrates' Court next week.
George Madgwick charges
The charges include two counts of assault by penetration, two counts of sexual assault, two counts of making indecent images of children and two counts of controlling or coercive behaviour. He also faces eight counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, along with one charge each of causing or inciting sexual exploitation of a child, distributing an indecent image of a child, stalking, making threats to kill, false imprisonment, theft and criminal damage.
The number of charges points to a case built from more than one alleged incident and more than one type of offence. The allegations are said to involve four victims who were aged 16 and 17 at the time.
Portsmouth Magistrates' Court
The Crown Prosecution Service said it charged Madgwick on Tuesday. He is due to appear at Portsmouth Magistrates' Court on Wednesday 25 November, where the charges will move into the court process and the allegations will face the next formal stage.
For readers in Hampshire and Portsmouth, the immediate next step is the court appearance itself. That is the point at which the case moves from an announcement of charges to a live proceeding against a named local political leader.
