MP Illsley admits £14,500 expenses fraud

Illsley changed his plea to guilty of three charges of false accounting when he appeared for trial at Southwark Crown Court this morning. The judge, Mr Justice Saunders, adjourned the case for sentencing in four weeks’ time.

The MP had originally denied dishonestly claiming more than £25,000 on his second home in south London. But the prosecution said it would accept his guilty plea to the lesser amount of around £14,500.

The claims were made for council tax, service charges and maintenance, telephone usage, insurance and repairs at the property in Renfrew Road, Kennington.

During a brief five-minute hearing, Illsley spoke only to confirm his pleas of guilty to the three charges.

Illsley, who was suspended from the Labour Party following the charges, still sits as an independent MP, having been re-elected in May. But under the 1981 Representation of the People Act, if he is sentenced to 12 months or more imprisonment he will be disqualified and a by-election will be held.

Labour’s leader, Ed Miliband, said he should stand down as an MP.

“He’s no longer a Labour Member of Parliament. I think he should do the right thing and resign as a Member of Parliament because I don’t think he can be a credible voice for his constituents having pleaded guilty to such a serious offence,” he said.

Simon Clements, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said after the hearing: “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.”

Illsley was released on bail pending sentencing. He did not answer reporters’ questions as he left the court.

What now for Eric Illsley? 
He's the only sitting MP currently up before the courts on expenses, writes Political Editor Gary Gibbon.

He pleaded guilty and the expectation must be that that'll mean a by-election in Barnsley where he has a, 11,000 majority. But, by the rules, he doesn't necessarily mean he leaves Parliament. The rules say that any MP who is sentenced for more than 1 year automatically loses his seat. He hasn't been sentenced yet - he could be sentenced, like David Chaytor, to more than 1 year. He could resign even if his sentence was under 1 year. And the House could vote to expel him if it thought that he wasn't going but MPs wanted him to go.

Read Gary Gibbons' full blog here.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance called for a “severe” punishment for Illsley to demonstrate that MPs are not above the law.

Its Director, Matthew Sinclair, said: “Taxpayers will be glad to see that justice is finally being done. But they will be outraged that any MP was able to dishonestly claim tens of thousands of pounds of their money in the first place.

“It is disgraceful that Illsley has dragged out the process and stood for Parliament again, despite knowing that he was a guilty criminal who had ripped off the taxpayers whose interests he was supposed to serve.

“He should have stepped down before the election and offered his constituents a fair alternative.”

The former Labour MP David Chaytor became the first person to be jailed over the expenses scandal last Friday.

He was sentenced to 18 months after admitting he forged tenancy documents and invoices to falsely claim more than #22,000 of taxpayers’ money for rent and IT work from House of Commons authorities.