Margaret Moran Found Guilty

13 November 2012, 13:03 | Updated: 13 November 2012, 13:07

A jury has ruled that former Luton South Labour MP Margaret Moran fiddled her expenses claims to receive more than £53,000.

The 57-year-old claimed nearly her entire annual allowance in one bogus expense entry and forged invoices for more than £20,000 of non-existent goods and services.

Moran, who served as MP for Luton South from 1997 until the 2010 General Election, was found to have falsely claimed around £60,000 in parliamentary expenses between 2004 and 2008, of which she received £53,000.

Jurors at Southwark Crown Court in London were unable to return a guilty verdict after it was ruled that Moran was unfit to stand trial for mental health reasons.

Instead, in a trial of issue, the jury found that she had committed 15 counts of false accounting and six counts of using a false instrument over the claims for parliamentary expenses.