Why David Chaytor, What About The Rest of Them?
Friday, January 7, 2011
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Will someone take pity on this confused old soul, and explain it all to me? Please.
Check this fellow out, a man after my own heart. Here's a taste.
MPs' expenses: David Chaytor jailed over false claims
Ex-Labour MP David Chaytor has been jailed for 18 months for fraudulently claiming more than £20,000 in expenses.
Chaytor, 61, the former MP for Bury North, last month admitted three charges of false accounting.
He submitted bogus invoices for IT consultancy work and claimed rent he never paid on homes owned by his family, the court was told.
His lawyer James Sturman QC said he was a "broken man" who had paid a "devastating price" for the claims.
The former MP is now facing a large legal bill for both his defence and the costs of bringing the prosecution against him.
Chaytor made the false expenses claims in order to "siphon off" public money to which he was not entitled, the court heard.
Sentencing him Mr Justice Saunders said the 2009 MPs' expenses scandal had "shaken public confidence in the legislature and angered the public".
He said: "These false claims were made in breach of the high degree of trust placed in MPs to only make legitimate claims.
"These offences have wider and more important consequences than is to be found in other breach of trust cases. That is the effect they have had and will have in the confidence the public has in politicians."
The judge said MPs' behaviour must be "entirely honest if public confidence in the parliamentary system and rule of law is to be maintained".
He added that when fraudulent claims were discovered "significant penalties should follow so people realise how important it is for people to be honest in dealing with public funds".
Chaytor had been due to be the first MP to stand trial over expenses but changed his plea to guilty days before it started.
Two other former MPs, one current MP and two members of the House of Lords are due to face separate trials over their expenses claims. All have pleaded not guilty.
Chaytor, of Lumbutts, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, was paid £18,350 from the false claims.
A further £1,950 fraudulently claimed for IT support services was not paid out, because he had already exceeded his allowance for that type of expense.
The court heard that Chaytor was paid £12,925 for rent on a flat near Westminster between 2005 and 2006 which he owned, using a fake tenancy agreement with a "Sarah Elizabeth Rastrick" - his daughter's first and middle names.
He also claimed £5,425 for renting a cottage in Summerseat, near Bury in Lancashire between September 2007 and January 2008. A police investigation discovered it was actually owned by his mother, Olive Trickett, who had moved into a nursing home in May 2007 because she had dementia.
The claim for IT support services, made in May 2006, came as "something of a surprise" to the man named in the invoice - Paul France - the court heard, because he had not billed the former MP for any work. Mr France was a Labour member who did voluntary work at Chaytor's office. More and video of, I'm such a lyingTorytwat, Jonathan Aitken, giving advice about life on the in. BBC
Check this fellow out, a man after my own heart. Here's a taste.
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