UK prosecutor: 4 lawmakers face criminal charges in parliament’s expense claims scandal

4 UK lawmakers charged in expenses scandal

LONDON — Four British legislators face the prospect of jail in a deepening scandal over lawmakers’ expense claims, after the country’s chief prosecutor on Friday charged the men over alleged shady accounting practices.

Keir Starmer, Britain’s director of public prosecution, said three members of the House of Commons and one member of the House of Lords had been charged with offenses of false accounting — punishable with a possible jail term of up to seven years.

Investigations into six cases followed the exposure last year of expenses abuse by hundreds of British lawmakers, who used taxpayers’ money to fund everything from swank second homes to horse manure, porn movies and a mole catcher.

During the scandal, nine of Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s ministers quit and his governing Labour Party suffered heavy losses in local and European elections as angry voters deserted mainstream parties. Two House of Commons legislators have been ousted and about 150 others won’t run in the next national election as a result of the public uproar that tarnished all political parties.

Starmer said three Labour Party lawmakers in the House of Commons — Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine — and a Conservative Party member in the House of Lords — Paul White, known as Lord Hanningfield, had been charged.

The four men will appear at London’s City of Westminster court on March 11.

“Where there is wrongdoing and where there has been criminal action it has got to be dealt with in the harshest way.” Brown said Friday.

Brown’s Labour Party previously suspended Morley, Chaytor and Devine, and ruled that none of them could be a party candidate in the future. The three have protested their innocence.

“We totally refute any charges that we have committed an offense and we will defend our position robustly,” they said in a joint statement.

After Friday’s announcement, White quit his post as an opposition spokesman on transport issues and was suspended from the Conservative Party. White remains as leader of Essex County Council, the municipal authority in the county of Essex, east of London.

Starmer said White faces six charges of false accounting and is alleged to have submitted claims for overnight stays in London when records show that he had driven home.

“I totally refute the charges and will vigorously defend myself against them,” White said.

Chaytor faces three charges of false accounting. He is accused of using false invoices to bill the public for IT services worth almost 2,000 pounds ($3,145). Chaytor also allegedly claimed 12,925 pounds ($20,317) in rent for a central London house he already owned, and claimed another 5,425 pounds ($8,530) in rent on a house in northern England owned by his mother.

Morley, formerly Brown’s envoy on climate change, faces two charges of false accounting. He is alleged to have billed taxpayers about 30,500 ($48,000) in mortgage payments on a loan that had already been paid off.

“Dreadful day, can’t wait to put my side of the story,” Morley posted on his Twitter Web site.

Devine faces two charges for allegedly using false invoices for claims for cleaning and stationery. He denies wrongdoing.

Starmer said prosecutors had dismissed complaints against a second member of the House of Lords — Anthony Clarke, a Labour Party member — and a sixth case is still being considered.

The chief prosecutor said his lawyers would fight any attempt from the lawmakers to challenge the court’s jurisdiction by invoking parliamentary privilege — a legal immunity intended mainly to protect lawmakers from being sued for slander, a decision lauded by other British lawmakers, known as members of Parliament, or MPs.

“There should be no question of MPs or peers charged with serious criminal offenses sheltering behind parliamentary privilege,” said opposition Liberal Democrat lawmaker David Heath.

A report issued Thursday into the expense scandal ordered 392 current and former British legislators to repay a total of 1.12 million pounds ($1.7 million).

On the Net:

Crown Prosecution Service statement bit.ly/9rTFYW