A ROW has broken out over the use of police officers in election leaflets for South Dorset Tory hopeful Richard Drax.

Mr Drax’s team have strenuously denied any wrongdoing.

It is claimed the use of pictures – including one of Dorset Police Chief Constable Martin Baker with Mr Drax and Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling – contravene police rules.

A complaint has also been made after soldiers in uniform were used to deliver a cancellation notice of a political meeting Mr Drax was due to hold in Bovington.

South Dorset Conser-vatives say the police officers gave their written permission for their pictures to be used and that Army personnel took it upon themselves to deliver leaflets after the Ministry of Defence intervened and stopped the meeting.

Former Tory candidate Ed Matts failed to win the South Dorset seat from Labour MP Jim Knight in 2005 after he was embroiled in a row over fake photographs in campaign literature.

Mr Knight said the latest development follows on from Mr Matts’s blunder and accused Mr Drax of ‘compromising the police for his own advantage.’ He said Dorset Police’s media guidelines state that officers must be impartial and avoid being used by candidates to endorse their work.

Mr Drax’s agent and chairman of South Dorset Conservative Association George Preston said: “Richard Drax has done nothing wrong in this and I will be writing to the South Dorset Labour Party to tell them so.”

Dorset Police said the photographs were taken privately and the force had no control over their use.

A Dorset Police spokesman added: “All Dorset MPs have met with members of the force from time to time and on many occasions have taken photographs. The real issue here is about how individuals then choose to use those photographs.

“This is not a matter for the force, but for the individual. The force remains neutral on the use of such photographs.”