Troughers Charged

Excellent news.

Kier Starmer the Director of Public Prosecutions has announced that Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield are to be prosecuted.

Morley who is the Labour Party MP for Scunthorpe is charged with two counts of false accounting.  The first charge relates to his mortgage claims between 2004 and 2006 where he pocketed in excess of £14,000. The second charge relates to mortgage claims between March 2006 into 2007 when he was claiming on the same property despite there no longer being a mortgage on that property.

David Chaytor who is Labour Party MP for Bury North faces three charges.  The first is for a claim for IT services for £1,950 using false invoices.  The second is for claims of £12,925 in rent of a property that he in fact owns.  The third charge is for claims between September 2007 and January 2008 when claiming rent for a property that actually belongs to his mother.

Jim Devine is the Labour Party MP for Livingstone and a former minister and faces two charges.  The first for claims of dry cleaning totalling £3,240 using false invoices in 2008 and 2009.  The second charge relates to stationery claims totalling over £5,000 made using false invoices.

Lord Hanningfield is a Conservative Peer and he faces six charges all relating to false accounting.  Some of his claims for overnight stays are contradicted by records which show he was driven home.

Each of them could see themselves face gaol time of upto seven years.  This blogger hopes that the prosecution team makes a very public example of these men for their crimes which have had an immeasurable effect on the whole nation.  If there is further evidence of wrong doing passed to the Police, and I believe there may be, I hope the example setting does not end with these four.