Agencies/London


A Conservative member of the upper house of parliament was jailed for a year yesterday for fiddling his parliamentary expenses.
Lord John Taylor, 58, became the fifth lawmaker to be jailed over the scandal which rocked politics in 2009.
Taylor, a former lawyer who became the first black Conservative peer when he took his seat in the House of Lords in 1996, claimed more than £11,000 for travel and overnight subsistence.
In evidence to Southwark Crown Court in London, it emerged he told the House of Lords members’ expenses office that his main residence was a house in Oxford, which was owned by his nephew, when in fact he lived in London.
It emerged that Taylor had only visited the property in Oxford – which is home to his step-nephew Robert Taylor – twice and never stayed a night. When challenged by the media, he said he was living with his elderly mother, who had actually died several years earlier.
Taylor told his trial that he understood he only needed a “family connection” to a property to call it a main residence on his claim forms.
He also maintained he had pleaded not guilty because he had only been following advice given to him by fellow peers that nominating a residence outside of the capital was a way to earn money “in lieu of salary”.
He was convicted by a jury in January.
Sentencing Taylor to 12 months in jail, judge John Saunders said the expenses scandal had “left an indelible stain on Parliament”.
The 58-year-old, dressed in black suit, blue tie and shirt, looked impassive as the sentence was passed at Southwark Crown Court.
Saunders said Taylor had ruined his life “not by one stupid action but by a protracted course of dishonesty”.
Mohamed Khamisa QC, defending, had pleaded for a suspended sentence due to the fact his client was a powerful “role model” to young black people. He said the former barrister had dedicated his life to public service and had given up several “lucrative” financial contracts to be a member of the House of Lords in 1996. “He isn’t motivated by money, glory, pomposity, arrogance or greed. He is described as a humble gentleman who for most of his life has dedicated himself to public services.”
The scandal, which emerged after a newspaper obtained details of lawmakers’ claims for the reimbursement of everything from ornamental duck houses to porn films, forced a shake-up of the system of parliamentary allowances.
Another Conservative peer, Paul White, known as Lord Hanningfield, will be sentenced next month after he was found guilty last week of fraudulently claiming nearly £14,000 in his Lords expenses.
Taylor said he was under the impression he only needed a “family connection” to a property to call it a main residence on claim forms