All rise! Just over three years after quitting parliament, Jared O’Mara now finds himself in court rather than the Commons. The former Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam stands accused of making fake expense claims during his time in Westminster to fund a ‘significant cocaine habit’.
On the first day of his trial at Leeds crown court, the jury heard how O’Mara is accused of trying to swindle £30,000 of taxpayers’ money to fund his ‘heavy addiction’.
According to the prosecution, O’Mara tried to pass off the claims as payments related to a fictional charity called ‘Confident About Autism South Yorkshire’. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority(IPSA) was quick to flag the payments and rejected them after suspecting they might not be valid. Evidence shown to the court suggests that the fake charity invoices were ‘in different formats, have inconsistent references and in one case was dated for a date after it was submitted for payment’.
