A Labour election candidate has been forced to resign after The Daily Echo exposed him as a benefits cheat.

Khalid Farooq, 41, was an official in the Southampton Labour Party and a member of its powerful executive committee.

He was hoping to become a councillor for the city’s Bitterne Park ward in local elections this May until his criminal record was revealed to shocked party officials.

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Farooq has campaigned with city MP and communities secretary John Denham and joined recent demonstrations against the privatisation of council leisure facilities.

But his political ambitions collapsed when he pleaded guilty to four counts of making false statement to obtain unemployment benefits.

Farooq, of Radcliffe Road, Southampton, failed to declare that he, or his partner, owned no other property when filling out jobseeker allowance forms.

He was ordered to do 80 hours unpaid community work and pay Southampton City Council £150 in costs.

His partner Amna Farooq, 31, of the same address, has been cleared of four similar counts.

On a personal Internet profile Farooq describes himself as a “student ambassador”

employed by Southampton Solent University and claims: “I am a simple and honest person”.

He also moderates a legal website “Solent Moot Society”, which claims to be based at the university. A university spokesman said he was a former student who may have worked for them previously on an hourly basis.

In another business profile Farooq says he is chairman of Farooq UK Ltd, a retailer. He is also listed as a contact for Baddesley Accident Claim & Hire, a claims firm based in North Baddesley.

Farooq dismissed his conviction as “nothing serious” and put it down to a “mis-statement”, but declined to comment further.

Southampton Labour Party president John Arnold said: “As soon as we found out about his conviction we contacted Khalid Farooq and he resigned as a candidate and as a Labour Party member.”

Farooq also now faces dismissal from the city’s Pakistan Welfare Association.

General secretary Ahmed Hussain said: “My proposal will be to expel him because of his dishonesty”.

Candidates are disqualified from standing in local elections if they have been sentenced to more than three months imprisonment in the past five years.