Drink, drugs and defrauding the state: the spectacular fall of Jared O’Mara

Jared O’Mara’s election in June 2017, defeating Nick Clegg in a seat Labour had never held, was a huge shock. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

Six years ago, Jared O’Mara was seen as a breath of fresh air for British politics. “You don’t see people like me – young, working-class lads with disabilities – in parliament, but now you’re going to,” he said with understandable pride.

Today, O’Mara’s reputation is in tatters, his fall as spectacular as his rise. The former MP for Sheffield Hallam has been found guilty of trying to claim about £24,000 of taxpayers’ money to help fund a prodigious drug habit.