By Ben Kerrigan-
A former-MP who tried to claim £52,000 of taxpayers’ money to help fund a cocaine habit has been jailed for four years.
Prosecutor James Bourne-Arton roasted the Mp at every stage of the hearing, telling jurors that 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”.
Jared O’Mara sent fake invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body which regulates MPs’ business costs and pay in an attempt to pay the thousands of pounds debt he owed a drug dealer, his trial heard.
O’Mara, who quit the Labour party about a year after being elected as Sheffield Hallam MP, was convicted of six counts of fraud.
The 41-year-old was convicted of trying to claim up to tens of thousands of pounds in taxpayers’ money to fund an “extravagant lifestyle – drink, cigarettes and, above all, cocaine”.
Prosecutors said the total value of the fraud was about £52,000.
Mental Health
O’Mara claimed he was in “poor mental health” at the time and was abusing cocaine, a class A drug, in “prodigious quantities”.
Mark Kelly KC, defending O’Mara, said he was “an inadequate individual to cope with the stresses and strains of public life” and “resorted to taking drugs, alcohol and distancing himself in many respects from those that were around him”.
The jury in addition to hearing claims the Mp suffered from mental health issues, also heard O’Mara, who has autism and cerebral palsy, but the judge concluded he was “able to exercise appropriate judgement and make rational choices”.
The defences claims about the strains and stresses of public life is one that has featured before in research by an academic, revealing excessive drinking by stressed Mps in parliament , and raises fresh questions relating to how widespread such feelings are among Mps
Judge Tom Bayliss KC said O’Mara “abused [his] position as a member of parliament to commit these multiple frauds”.
He said that while O’Mara was “without doubt suffering from autism”, this did not reduce his culpability, nor his ability to work as an MP.
“You knew perfectly what you were doing with this fraud, you were behaving perfectly rationally, if dishonestly, and you were using your autism diagnosis to extract money from Ipsa to fund your cocaine and alcohol-driven lifestyle,” he said.
He said O’Mara’s apology to his constituents for not resigning in 2017 was “entirely disingenuous” and he had “shown not the slightest degree of remorse in respect of that”.
“You must have realised early on that you were wholly unsuited to the role [of MP], but you carried on regardless, you brazened it out, drawing a salary but doing little or no parliamentary work,” he said.
Leeds Crown Court was told he made four claims for a total of £19,400 from a “fictitious” organisation – Confident About Autism South Yorkshire – which jurors were told referred to his friend John Woodliff.
O’Mara was also found to have submitted a false contract of employment for Woodliff, pretending he worked as a constituency support officer.
Gareth Arnold, who submitted invoices to IPSA on behalf of O’Mara, was given a 15-month jail term suspended for two years.
The court heard fake invoices worth £24,000 were rejected by IPSA and a false £28,000 contract of employment submitted by O’Mara meant the total value of the fraud was £52,000.
Fake Post Code And Employment Contract
Prosecutors said the former politician had used the postcode of a McDonald’s restaurant in the city as the company’s business address and the firm’s name had no online search engine results.
He was also found guilty of trying to claim £4,650 for services he said his 30-year-old “chief of staff” Arnold, of School Lane, Dronfield, Derbyshire, had provided to him.
He also submitted a false contract of employment for a friend, pretending he worked as a constituency support officer on a salary of £28,000.
O’Mara was elected to Parliament for Labour in June 2017, unseating former deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.
He quit the party the following year and became an independent after he was suspended by the party over comments he had posted online before becoming an MP.
The 41-year-old stood down in 2019, the same year the fraud offences took place.
Through his barrister, O’Mara apologised to the 70,000 voters in the South Yorkshire constituency for failing to resign in October 2017, the month he was suspended by Labour.
However, Judge Tom Bayliss KC called the apology “entirely disingenuous” and said the fraud was “cynical, deliberate and dishonest”.
“You must have realised early on that you were wholly unsuited to the role, but you carried on regardless, you brazened it out; drawing a salary, but doing little or no parliamentary work,” he told O’Mara.
“You are not here because of that and I do not aggravate your position because of it. It is irrelevant to these proceedings. That is a matter between you and those who elected you.
“You are here because you abused your position to commit fraud and you have shown not the slightest degree of remorse in respect of that.”
He was also found guilty of trying to claim £4,650 for services he said his 30-year-old “chief of staff” Arnold, of School Lane, Dronfield, Derbyshire, had provided to him.
He also submitted a false contract of employment for a friend, pretending he worked as a constituency support officer on a salary of £28,000.
All the invoices were rejected by IPSA due to a lack of detail about the work carried out, the jury was told.
The jury heard O’Mara, who has autism and cerebral palsy, was experiencing mental health issues at the time of the offences, but the judge concluded he was “able to exercise appropriate judgement and make rational choices”.
Prosecutor James Bourne-Arton told the sentencing hearing the fraud was not a victimless crime as it “undermines public trust and confidence” in MPs.
Judge Bayliss, sentencing O’Mara, of Walker Close, Sheffield, told him the fraud was designed to get him out of “significant financial difficulties”.
He continued: “Those difficulties were caused by a hedonistic and self indulgent lifestyle, fuelled by the consumption of large amounts of vodka and cocaine.”