A disgraced former MP has been found guilty of six counts of fraud relating to his expenses claims while in office in 2019.
Jared O’Mara, 41, who represented the constituency of Sheffield Hallam from 2017 to 2019, was on trial at Leeds Crown Court for submitting fake invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to fund a cocaine habit.
He was convicted on Wednesday of six counts of fraud by false representation.
The jury cleared him of two other fraud charges.
The court heard how O'Mara, 41, made four claims to IPSA for a total of £19,400 for services from a “fictitious” organisation called Confident About Autism South Yorkshire.
The ex-MP was found not guilty of two fraud charges over invoices from another friend, Gareth Arnold, for media and PR work that prosecutors had claimed was never carried out.
But he was convicted of an offence of fraud after emailing Ipsa in February 2020, falsely claiming the police investigation into him had been completed and that he was entitled to be paid the two invoices relating to Arnold, which totalled £4,650.
Co-defendant Arnold, who became O’Mara’s chief of staff in June 2019, was found guilty of three out of six fraud charges, and the third defendant, John Woodliff, was found not guilty of one offence of fraud.
O’Mara and Arnold will be sentenced at the same court on Thursday.
O’Mara was elected to Parliament for Labour in June 2017, in former deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s seat.
He later became an independent after he was suspended by Labour over comments he'd posted online before becoming an MP.
