Lord Taylor found guilty of fiddling expenses

Jury convicts former Tory peer of making false expenses claims worth more than 11,000

A former Tory peer was found guilty today of fiddling his expenses.

Lord Taylor of Warwick falsely claimed for travel and overnight subsistence, a jury at Southwark Crown Court decided by a majority of 11 to one.

He was found guilty on all six charges.

The 58-year-old told the House of Lords members' expenses office that his main residence was in Oxford, when he lived in Ealing, west London.

Taylor was the first parliamentarian to be tried and found guilty by a jury over the expenses scandal.

Trial judge Mr Justice Saunders had told the jury they could return a majority verdict of at least 10 votes to two, after they passed him a note to say they could not reach a unanimous decision.

Taylor had denied all six charges of false accounting.

Concluding his summing-up of the case, Saunders went through the claims that Taylor made on various dates between March 2006 and October 2007.

The first claim was for 1,555.70, the second for 2,042.80, the third was 1,600.70, the fourth 2,309.50, the fifth 2,421.80, and the final claim was for 1,347.30.

Saunders said the total, therefore, was 11,277.80.


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