Lord Taylor's nephew 'angry' peer used his address to make expenses claims
Robert Taylor tells court he would not have allowed his uncle to register Oxford home as residence 'because it would not be true'
The nephew of Lord Taylor today told a court he was "shocked and angry" when he learned that the peer, who has been accused of fiddling his expenses, had used his address to make false claims.
Robert Taylor told jurors at Southwark crown court in London that he would not have allowed his uncle to register the Oxford home as a residence even if he had asked him "because it would not be true".
Taylor, 58, ennobled by the Conservatives and the first black peer in the House of Lords, denies six counts of false accounting between 2006 and 2007 and dishonestly claiming 11,277 in overnight and travelling expenses.
He had claimed his main residence was an address in Oxford in order to claim the allowances for staying overnight in London on House of Lords business. But he had just one residence in Ealing, west London, the court was told.
His nephew, a photographer whose father is the peer's half brother, said his uncle had never stayed at the two-bedroomed terraced property owned by his partner, the Oxford academic Dr Tristram Wyatt.
He had no contact with the peer in his early years, but had gradually built up a friendship after leaving university, although they seldom saw each other, he said.
He told the court he remembered Taylor ringing him up "out of the blue for a chat" some time around 2003-2004 and saying his marriage was breaking up.
"Specifically, he was asking for permission to have a couple of specific pieces of mail to be sent to our Oxford address because he was anxious about his wife intercepting the mail," he said.
Asked about his reaction when he heard that, in 2009, Taylor had registered the house as his main residence, he said: "I was shocked I was quite angry.
"I had always wondered why he had been quite so friendly because we didn't, on the face of it, have a lot it common." It made him que! stion wh ether it had been "a real friendship at all", he said.
Taylor had only visited the house twice, he told the court once to attend a summer garden party with his children and about 150 other guests, and once to park his car before going to dinner with Wyatt at Oxford College.
The peer had called him in late 2009 to warn him that "the press were going to be going after a number of peers" in connection with expenses, and told him that, because he was associated with him, they might contact him and Wyatt. "He advised us to make no comment," he said.
He was invited to photograph the peer's wedding to his second wife at the House of Lords in December 2009, he said.
On leaving, he said Taylor made comments to him and Wyatt that they found curious. "He vaguely apologised for stuff. We didn't know at that stage what he was talking about," he said. But they discovered by logging on to the internet when they got home.
When journalists approached them over whether Taylor lived at the premises, they said no, he said.
Wyatt said he had only met Taylor on three occasions and it was "a great surprise" to learn he had registered the address "because he didn't live there".
Taylor denies dishonestly claiming the allowances, saying he believed it was common practice and acceptable for peers to claim the expenses "in lieu" of salary.
The qualified barrister is the first parliamentarian to stand trial over expenses allegations.
The case continues.
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