THE British National Party nearly pulled off a shock result in Bexley’s East Wickham by-election.

Tory candidate Steven Hall scraped home to win the seat by just eight votes.

The vote was recounted twice before the result was finally announced at Bexley Council’s civic offices at 12.15am this morning (January 23).

Mr Hall polled 798 votes with Michael Barnbrook (BNP) on 790 votes.

Labour’s Pat Ball came third with 700 votes while the Liberal Democrat candidate Grace Goodlad came fourth with 564 votes.

Laurence Williams (English Democrats) was in last place with 128 votes.