Two claims for a total £4,650 of fictitious media and PR work form part of an almost £30,000 expenses fraud prosecutors have claimed ex-Sheffield Hallam MP Jared O’Mara and accomplices committed, Leeds Crown Court heard today.
Opening the case for the prosecution, James Bourne-Arton described it as a “very straightforward case of fraud.”
He added: “In 2019 the defendants Jared O’Mara and Gareth Arnold submitted a series of invoices for payment that were false – that is to say that the services that the invoices related to were a fiction and the defendants knew that,” he said.
O’Mara is on trial alongside Arnold, his “chief of staff,” and a third man, John Woodliff, who the prosecution allege held a non-existent constituency support officer role as a means to “generate money.”
The prosecution also alleges that O’Mara and his accomplices invented the organisation Confident About Autism South Yorkshire, submitting £19,400 of fraudulent claims relating to it.
The jury heard the invoices were submitted to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the independent body which was established to scrutinise MP’s expense claims and restore public confidence following the 2009 MP expenses scandal.
Bourne-Arton continued: “Jared O’Mara viewed IPSA, and the taxpayer’s money that they administered, as a source of income that was his to claim and use as he wished, not least in the enjoyment of his extensive cocaine habit.”
The court heard Arnold alerted South Yorkshire Police by phone on 2 July 2019 “after reaching a point at which he was no longer willing to participate in the fraud.”
O’Mara has denied eight counts of fraud, while Arnold denies six and Woodliff one charge.
The former MP was elected to Parliament in June 2017 after a shock victory in Sheffield Hallam over former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Nick Clegg. He quit Labour in 2018 but remained in office as an independent MP until standing down at the 2019 general election.
