REFORM UK’s former leader in Wales has been jailed for10-and-a-half years over taking Russian bribes worth up to £40,000, in a new blow for the party.

It follows their only Senedd member, South Wales East MS Laura Anne Jones, who lives in Monmouth, being suspended for 14 days from the national chamber this week, over making a racial slur and using offensive language on WhatsApp messages.

Earlier in the month, former Monmouth School for Girls pupil, Sarah Pochin – Reform’s only woman MP - was also forced to apologise over saying on a live TV phone-in that the number of black and Asian people in TV ads made her “mad”.

But the case around 52-year-old Gill, who was Nigel Farage’s right-hand man when they were UKIP members of the European Parliament together, is a different scale altogether.

BBC News reported that Gill, a former Mormon Bishop, from Llangefni in Anglesey, was an MEP when he accepted money from Oleg Voloshyn, 44, a man once described by the US government as a "pawn" of Russian secret services, to promote Russian viewpoints and organise pro-Putin events.

At the Old Bailey, Judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said Gill had abused his position and eroded "public confidence in democracy".

Voloshyn was acting on behalf of a "close friend" of Vladimir Putin – Viktor Medvedchuk, 71, a former oligarch who was the source of the requests and the cash.

The Metropolitan Police said their own investigations are continuing into "whether any other individuals have committed offences".

Gill, also a former UKIP Welsh Assembly member who played a prominent role in the UK pro-Brexit campaign, is the first politician to be jailed under the Bribery Act.

Reform leader Farage said Gill was a single “bad apple” after he pleaded guilty to eight counts of bribery a month ago, and Reform UK said after the sentencing it was glad justice had been served, calling his actions "reprehensible, treasonous and unforgivable".

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer accused Gill of "undermining our interests as a country" and called on Farage to investigate what other links the party had with Russia.

Welsh Government First Minister Eluned Morgan told the Senedd chamber after Gill’s guilty pleas: “We knew that Reform is a threat in Wales, that there is a real possibility of corruption and chaos, and now we have evidence of that through someone who was the former leader of Reform in Wales.

"I think we have all been appalled by the act of the former leader of Reform in Wales, a person who was a member of this chamber.”