The 3 ex-Labour ex-MPs who were accused of fiddling their expenses have gone and got themselves a bucketful more of taxpayers’ money to help pay their legal bills... and it comes to them just a few weeks before the introduction of means testing for legal aid.
Chaytor, Morley and the inappropriately named Devine are accused of diddling the taxpayer collectively of around £60,000 with a variety of ploys such as false mortgage claims, rent claims and false invoices.
They are, under current rules, eligible for legal aid to fund their defences and that includes unbelievably the argument that they too superior to be tried in an ordinary court with ordinary people because they are...erm were ... politicians. One of the arguments that we will be paying for them to put forward is that they are covered under the English Bill of Rights which has never been revoked. It’s great what REAL money can do. Ours.
If they take their legal appeal all the way to the English Supreme Court, which, of course, now that we are paying, they would be mad not to do, the total cost of prosecuting the four (including Tory Lord Hanningfield), could exceed £3 million. We wanted them tried and now it will cost us millions to put them behind bars for a collective 'alleged' fraud of around £60,000.
David Cameron made much of the decision to granting them legal aid. Hanningfiledalso in the dock, but with different solicitors has not (at least yet) applied for the state aid. Mr Cameron also noted that they had unsuccessfully asked that they should be spared from standing in the
dock when they appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court last month
.
He said that there would be a review of legal aid under a Tory government and said that there would not be legal aid available for MPs who are accused of fiddling their expenses. I’m not sure how he’ll manage that as I think that English law is based on “innocent until proved guilty” as is our own.
The three have engaged some of England’s top, and most expensive barristers, who charge hundreds of pounds an hour. I thought that when you were on legal aid you took whatever was going even if it was rubbish.
That’s the way it works for ordinary people.... but I keep forget these people think that they are on the same level as the Queen, who as I understand it, is not above the law, but IS the law and therefore cannot face justice in one of her own courts
The politicians could face up to seven years in jail if found guilty of stealing taxpayers’ cash. But who’s betting on that?
Chaytor, Morley and the inappropriately named Devine are accused of diddling the taxpayer collectively of around £60,000 with a variety of ploys such as false mortgage claims, rent claims and false invoices.
They are, under current rules, eligible for legal aid to fund their defences and that includes unbelievably the argument that they too superior to be tried in an ordinary court with ordinary people because they are...erm were ... politicians. One of the arguments that we will be paying for them to put forward is that they are covered under the English Bill of Rights which has never been revoked. It’s great what REAL money can do. Ours.
If they take their legal appeal all the way to the English Supreme Court, which, of course, now that we are paying, they would be mad not to do, the total cost of prosecuting the four (including Tory Lord Hanningfield), could exceed £3 million. We wanted them tried and now it will cost us millions to put them behind bars for a collective 'alleged' fraud of around £60,000.
David Cameron made much of the decision to granting them legal aid. Hanningfiledalso in the dock, but with different solicitors has not (at least yet) applied for the state aid. Mr Cameron also noted that they had unsuccessfully asked that they should be spared from standing in the
dock when they appeared at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court last month.
He said that there would be a review of legal aid under a Tory government and said that there would not be legal aid available for MPs who are accused of fiddling their expenses. I’m not sure how he’ll manage that as I think that English law is based on “innocent until proved guilty” as is our own.
The three have engaged some of England’s top, and most expensive barristers, who charge hundreds of pounds an hour. I thought that when you were on legal aid you took whatever was going even if it was rubbish.
That’s the way it works for ordinary people.... but I keep forget these people think that they are on the same level as the Queen, who as I understand it, is not above the law, but IS the law and therefore cannot face justice in one of her own courts
The politicians could face up to seven years in jail if found guilty of stealing taxpayers’ cash. But who’s betting on that?
Pictured: The prisoners at the bar, except of course they aren't prisoners, them being who they are.
This issue really, really gets my goat; they remain citizens of this country and have to abide by the laws of the land. End of. Why there is all this faffing around this issue is beyond me; it should be as simple as catching a benefit cheat but nothing in their world remotely resembles ours. They are the cream of society, the elite and powerful and by that authority they are above the law.
ReplyDelete"The politicians could face up to seven years in jail if found guilty of stealing taxpayers’ cash. But who’s betting on that?"
I'd rather bet on Scotland winning the world cup if I'm honest.
Joolz.
The outcome of this will be almost as interesting as the outcome of the general election. I still can’t help getting the feeling that these three are being hung out to dry for the much larger sins of quite a large number of them. We should be inured to the fact that they don’t expect to be treated like “normal” people and we should be more than ready for the fact that they won’t be when verdicts are decided upon. I can’t see them getting off scot free but I also can’t see them going to jail.
ReplyDeleteHI Joolz. Welcome to MR.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. They are benefit cheats, but, we'd never have a case costing millions for a bloke that understated his income on his housing benefit forms.
The fact that the didn't want to stand in the dock where 'ordinary lower class' criminals had stood was so telling. Labour MPs? My butt!
Hey, what's wrong with Scotland winning the world cup....? Oh yeah, right, sorry, LOL.
yew Munguin , you're right. Some community service now that they are unemployed.
ReplyDeleteThe 3 disgraced rags are only making a mockery of themselves and the Labour party. I agree with Munguin and I can't see them going to jail but they will be found guilty.
ReplyDeleteAllan:
ReplyDeleteYou're right. They won't go to jail but we'll be sold the story that the MPs have paid.
In the meantime Jacquie Smith and her like get away with it.
Sickening. If I didn't have the SNP and freedom to vote for, I'd go to polling station and write something rude on the slip.