UK parliamentarian convicted for expenses fraud

A member of the upper house of Britain's parliament was found guilty on Tuesday of fiddling his expenses, becoming the first member of the House of Lords to be convicted over a 2009 scandal that engulfed politicians. John Taylor, known as Lord Taylor of Warwick, the first black Conservative peer, claimed for travel and overnight subsistence when he was really living in London, a jury decided.
Hundreds of lawmakers were ordered to repay a total of more than 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) in the wake of the expenses scandal, which caused widespread public anger and an overhaul of the system for reclaiming costs. Newspaper revelations showed unallocated lords and members of the lower chamber, the House of Commons, had claimed for items ranging from toilet paper to dog food, moat cleaning and ornamental duck houses. The embarrassment tainted members of all major parties.
The 58-year-old Taylor, a lawyer and former broadcaster, had told the House of Lords members' expenses office that his main residence was in the city of Oxford, west of London. Taylor was the first parliamentarian to be tried and found guilty by a jury over the expenses row. Two former Labour MPs have pleaded guilty in court and one of them has been jailed.
Taylor was released on bail pending sentence. He stood trial for making 11,277 pounds worth of claims between March 2006 and October 2007. Throughout the trial, he maintained he was following the advice given to him by fellow peers, that nominating a main residence outside of the capital was a way to earn money "in lieu of salary". The property in Oxford was the home of Taylor's nephew.
The Crown Prosecution Service welcomed the verdict. "No one could sincerely believe that a home in which they had no financial interest, had never lived in and had scarcely visited could count as their main residence, or that it was permissible to claim for driving between Oxford and parliament when they had not done so," said Stephen O'Doherty, reviewing lawyer for CPS Special Crime Division. "Yet Lord Taylor claimed exactly that and landed the taxpayer with a bill of more than 11,000 pounds," he added in a statement.