Former MP jailed over fraud to fund ‘cocaine lifestyle’
A FORMER MP has been jailed for four years for “cynical, deliberate and dishonest” expenses fraud to fund a “cocaine and alcohol-driven lifestyle”.
Jared O’Mara “abused his position” by trying to claim about £52,000 of taxpayers’ money for work that was never done and jobs that did not exist, a judge said.
O’Mara, 41, who represented the constituency of Sheffield Hallam from 2017 to 2019, went on trial for submitting fake invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) between June and August 2019.
Leeds Crown Court heard O’Mara made four claims for a total of £19,400 from a “fictitious” organisation called Confident About Autism South Yorkshire.
A jury found he also submitted a false contract of employment for his friend John Woodliff, pretending he worked as a constituency support officer.
The former nightclub manager was cleared of two fraud charges over invoices from another friend, Gareth Arnold, for media work that prosecutors claimed was never carried out. But he was convicted of an offence of fraud after emailing Ipsa in February 2020, falsely claiming the police investigation into him had been completed and he was entitled to be paid the two invoices relating to Arnold, which totalled £4,650.
Prosecutors said the total value of the fraud was about £52,000, including Mr Woodliff’s proposed salary of £28,000.
Arnold, who became O’Mara’s chief of staff in June 2019, was sentenced to 15 months suspended for two years after a jury found him guilty of three fraud charges, but cleared him of a further three. Prosecutor James Bourne-Arton said the fraud was not a victimless crime and that it had an impact on other MPs “because it undermines public trust and confidence in them”.
Mark Kelly KC, defending O’Mara, said he was “an inadequate individual to cope with the stresses and strains of public life”.
Judge Tom Bayliss KC said at the time of the fraud, O’Mara had financial difficulties “caused by a hedonistic lifestyle fuelled by the consumption of large amounts of vodka and, of course, cocaine”.
The judge said, after being diagnosed with autism in February 2018, O’Mara was allowed to employ a support assistant.
But, he said: “What you never did ... was to avail yourself of the services of Confident About Autism South Yorkshire. You couldn’t, because it simply didn’t exist.”
O’Mara won Sheffield Hallam for Labour from former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Nick Clegg in 2017, but later left the party after a series of controversies. He stayed in office as an independent MP but did not contest the 2019 general election.