Illsley pleads guilty over expenses' fraud
Pro-pub MP Eric Illsley could be facing jail after admitting he dishonestly claimed more than £14,000 of expenses.
Illsley, a former parliamentary advisor to the Federation of Licensed Victuallers Associations, today pleaded guilty to three charges of false accounting over claims for council tax, maintenance, repairs and utility bills for his second home.
The MP, who was also vice chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Save the Pub group in the last Parliament, had previously denied all the charges.
Illsley was re-elected as Labour MP for Barnsley Central earlier this year, but is now an independent after being suspended from the party over the charges.
At Southwark Crown Court today, Mr Justice Saunders adjourned the hearing for four weeks for a pre-sentence report.
Illsley could get a prison term of between 12 months and a maximum of seven years. If so, he will be disqualified from being an MP under the Representation of the People Act 1981.
The false payments related to Illsley's second home in Kennington, south London, between 2005 and 2008.
He is the first sitting MP to be convicted of expenses fraud. Former Labour MP David Chaytor was jailed for 18 months last week after admitting to fraudently claiming more than £20,000 in expenses.
On the Illsley case, Simon Clements, head of the Crown Prosecution Service's special crime division, said: "This was a significant sum of money and the grossly inflated claims he submitted could not be attributed to an oversight or accounting error - indeed he claimed that the expenses system was a way of supplementing members' salaries.
"By his guilty pleas he has accepted that he was dishonest in making these claims. As an elected representative, Eric Illsley took advantage of the trust placed in him by his constituents to act honourably on their behalf."
