Denis MacShane faces six months sentence over fake MP expenses claims

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Ex-Labour MP Denis MacShane faces six months sentence at the Old Bailey on Monday after admitting making fake extra parliamentary expense claims amounting to nearly £13,000.

Mr. MacShane, 65, a former Europe minister, stepped down from the position of Labour MP in 2012 following an investigation by parliamentary committee.

Previously, Mr. MacShane pleaded guilty in November to false accounting by filing 19 fake receipts for “research and translation” services between January 2005 and January 2008. Former MP is the fifth MP to be jailed in connection to the 2009 expenses fraud scandal.

Mr. Justice Sweeney has told MacShane his dishonesty had been “considerable and repeated many times over a long period”.

The judge has further said: “You have no one to blame but yourself” for the deceitful acts.

The judge has told the former minister had shown “a flagrant breach of trust” in “our priceless democratic system”.

He has told: “The deception used was calculated and designed.”

Initially, Mr. MacShane is believed to have incurred genuine and acceptable expenses related to his capacity as an MP, but after remaining unable to generate any such receipts for the related items he decided to create ‘misleading and deceptive invoices’ in their place.

Mr. MacShane used the money to fund a series of trips to Europe, including one to judge a literary competition in Paris. He will serve half his sentence in prison and is also ordered to pay costs amounting to £1,500 within two months.

Parliamentary authorities started their inquiry regarding the former MP’s claims in 2009 as the wider expenses scandal engulfed Westminster, and referred him to Scotland Yard within months.

Mr. MacShane, who served as a minister under Tony Blair, resigned as MP for Rotherham last November before the execution of punishment.

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