Labour MP pleads gulty to expenses fraud

11th January 2011

Labour MP Eric Illsley has pleaded guilty to charges he fraudulently claimed more than £14,000 in parliamentary expenses.

Appearing at Southwark Crown Court in London, Illsley pleaded guilty to three charges of false accounting over his expenses claims.

The Barnsley Central MP faced three charges related to claims for council tax, service charges and maintenance, repairs and utility bills between 2005 and 2008.

The first sitting MP to be convicted of expenses fraud, Illsley was re-elected in May's general election with a majority of 11,093.

Illsley was suspended from the Labour Party following the allegations and sits as an independent following his re-election.

Simon Clements, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said after the hearing: "Eric Illsley, the MP for Barnsley Central, has admitted taking more than £14,000 of the public's money that he was not entitled to.

"This was a significant sum of money and the grossly inflated claims he submitted could not be attributed to an oversight or accounting error – indeed he claimed that the expenses system was a way of supplementing members' salaries.

"By his guilty pleas he has accepted that he was dishonest in making these claims. As an elected representative, Eric Illsley took advantage of the trust placed in him by his constituents to act honourably on their behalf.

"Instead, he siphoned off public money into his own pockets and betrayed those who rightly expected the highest standards of integrity from him as a Member of Parliament."

On Friday former Labour MP David Chaytor was sentenced to 18 months in prison for making false parliamentary expenses claims totalling £18,350.

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