A CONVICTED fraudster who wants immigrants deported and paedophiles castrated has been selected as the first parliamentary candidate to be chosen by a television reality show.

Rodney Hylton-Potts, a former solicitor who was once sentenced to five years in prison for a £20,000 mortgage fraud, emerged as the favourite of viewers of ITV’s Vote For Me programme.

Hylton-Potts, who also admits to having used cocaine and cannabis, defeated a campaigner against mobile phone masts and a junior doctor who wanted to reform the National Health Service, among other would-be candidates.

He now has the chance to stand at the next general election as an independent candidate, bolstered by his status as a winner of the show.

He was chosen by viewers after a week-long series of elimination programmes in which the potential MPs were interviewed by political journalists and a panel of judges chaired by John Sergeant, the former ITN political editor.

The panel included Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of The Sun, who described the winner as “Rodney Hylton- Pothead”, and Lorraine Kelly, the television presenter.

Hylton-Potts claimed yesterday that he was thinking of launching a new political party after receiving more than 140,000 messages of support.

He is considering standing against either Michael Howard, the Tory leader, in Folkestone and Hythe or against Labour’s Iain Coleman in Hammersmith and Fulham, the west London constituency where he lives.

He added: “What is interesting is the support for nil immigration. We have had huge support on my website.

“The main parties don’t address this at all despite the many people not wanting any more immigration.”

Dominic Carman, son of the late barrister George Carman and who was voted off the show by viewers, said: “His views are more extreme than Nick Griffin, the BNP leader.

“They never expected him to win. It was the nightmare scenario for ITV but it is their responsibility because they let the genie out of the bottle.”

ITV is unlikely to repeat the show after such an outcome. A spokesman said yesterday: “We have been underwhelmed by the response to Rodney’s victory. The fact that he won reflects that he led a good campaign and that there were enough people to vote for him.

“From an ITV point of view the show was always hoping to engage people in debate and increase interest in politics. To that end it was a success. We can’t be responsible for what Rodney says.”

ITV said Hylton-Potts’s appearance on the show was the responsibility of the judges who chose him after interviewing people on a shortlist of 60 from more than 1,000 who applied to take part.

Jonathan Maitland, the show’s presenter, said: “The winner is a comedy fascist nutter and a cross between Lord Brocket and Mussolini.

“It’s not embarrassing that he won because we’ll now respect our real politicians more.”

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