A UKIP candidate whose campaign literature for last month's city council election was delivered with a £5 voucher for his hairdressing salon will not face any police action.

Officers investigating 'potential electoral malpractice' had interviewed Nicholas Lansdell, who stood in Thorpe Hamlet, but ton Wednesday afternoon said they would take no further action.

Mr Lansdell, who runs Above The Fringe hairdressers, on Castle Meadow, said the complaint had scared him, but had made an innocent mistake and was relieved the matter was over.

He added his chairman said he should stand for election again because he had received so much publicity following the media coverage he received.

Mr Lansdell had offered a £5 discount on a wash, cut and blow dry at Above The Fringe hairdressers, on Castle Meadow, with a voucher sent out at the same time as his leaflet.

He said it was only sent out at the same time because the men he paid to distribute it said they could deliver both at once, along with leaflets for other businesses.

The voucher promised '£5 off with this leaflet', but the 53-year-old said this referred to the voucher itself, and not the letter, which mentioned his salon as well as setting out his election platform.

He said at the time of the elections in May: 'I'm sorry if I upset anybody. It was not intentional. They were doing all the leaflets for me, so they said they would do it for me, so they incorporated it in two. There were lots of other businesses as well.'

One voter who received the two items together questioned whether they amounted to 'treating', an electoral offence.