Elliot morley trial

Faces six charges relating to false travel expenses claims. He is alleged to have claimed Lords overnight allowances in London when he had actually returned to his Essex home. Mr Knowles insisted the MPs were not saying they are 'above the law', but simply believed their alleged offences should be handled by the Commons.

District Judge Workman agreed the case raised issues of constitutional importance and declined jurisdiction, sending it up to a trial judge in the Crown Court. Lord Hanningfield made no attempt to sit outside the dock during his hearing, which followed immediately afterwards. Dressed in a grey suit, the Tory peer said he would deny charges of wrongly claiming for 'repayment of travelling and other expenses'.

All four men were released on unconditional bail and will appear at Southwark Crown Court in London on March 30, just days before an election is expected to be called. None of the politicians commented as they left the court but in a statement, Lord Hanningfield said he was 'devastated' by the affair.

He feels he has been singled out. He does not believe that he has done anything dishonest. The MPs' insistence that a criminal court has no authority over the case sets up a bitter battle that threatens to overshadow the election campaign.

The court appearance came after it emerged Labour MP Harry Cohen is also being investigated by police for expenses fraud.

The prosecution means details of the expenses scandal now threaten to resurface just as the main party leaders want to divert attention back to their campaigns.

He was jailed for seven years and expelled from the Commons after being convicted of forging signatures on letters to guarantee his business debts. Argos AO. Privacy Policy Feedback. The offences are alleged to have taken place between March and April Share or comment on this article: 'Expenses fraud' MPs plead with court not to make them sit in dock How metaphor-loving JVT earned public's trust Brawl breaks out in Tesco as fearless pensioner continues shopping Racy videos of prostitute who was arrested with England rugby star Anti-epidemic workers go viral for using human chain to deliver food Distressing videos reveal conditions inside 'China's isolation camps' HMS Prince of Wales departs Portsmouth in show of force to Russia Two airliners appear to fly just feet from each other near Luton Nicholas Witchell: Prince Andrew civil sex case a 'monumental mess' Man uses a hammer to destroy BBC's statue created by Eric Gill Rishi's car drives through Westminster as PM set for explosive PMQs Xi'an resident 'beaten' by anti-epidemic workers for flouting rules.

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He doesn't care about anyone else' The Young and the Restless star Richard Burgi axed from the soap opera for 'naively and inadvertently' violating COVID policy Brooke Burke, 50, shows off her toned tummy in a tie dye bra top and leggings Saunders J also noted the opinion dated 9 th September from the Clerk of the House to the Speaker recording that, although he accepted that the ACA expenses scheme arose from Resolutions in the House "the proposition that all actions or claims under it are proceedings, seems to me to be unsustainable.

The House agrees to many things by Resolution — for example to build a new building — but that does not mean that all activities in connection its erection are "proceedings". Proceedings must imply, in the words of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, "formal collegiate activities of Parliament"…it also seems to me to be pertinent to the consideration of claims…being protected that throughout the Houses involvement in Freedom of Information cases in respect of publication of claims and expenses, the House has never sought an exemption under Section 34 of the Act which covers matters deemed to infringe parliamentary Privilege".

The opinion ends:. We were invited to consider the letter dated 2 March from the Clerk of the Committee to Mr Morley in relation to "payment of the resettlement grant" as providing support for the appellant's submissions on this question.

However this letter was not directed to the question whether such grants fell within the ambit of "proceedings" covered by privilege. Our attention was also drawn to the message to all Members of the House from the Estimate Committee dated 3 December informing members that they would be entitled to appeal against recommendations by Sir Thomas Legg in relation to repayments of expenses by individual members.

It is argued that the process was created to make good the opportunity which, because of parliamentary privilege, would not be available at the behest of an individual member who wished to challenge these rulings. The Legg Review was, as it seems to us, properly described as "internal proceedings" of the House, reflecting the way in which the House had decided to address what had become a notorious problem.

It did not operate to bring the claims for expenses within the ambit of parliamentary privilege if, at the time when the claims were made, they did not fall within its ambit. We have approached the withdrawal of the Crown's concession before Saunders J with caution, but we agree with the position it has now taken.

The issue in these appeals is not whether the actions of officials in allowing the defendants' expenses claims is or may be privileged, but whether in submitting their claims, and making the allegedly false statements contained in them to the officials, the defendants were taking part in proceedings in Parliament, within the ambit of article 9 and privilege, as explained in the relevant authorities. We are fortified in this conclusion by the realities.

Parliament is rightly jealous of any actual or potential infringement of its privileges. If there were parliamentary concern about a possible breach of privilege arising from a prosecution based on fraudulent claims for expenses by members, we have no doubt that formal steps would have been taken by the Speaker and Lord Speaker to raise the question with the court.

As it is, we know from the evidence that the report by Sir Thomas Legg dated 1 st February into the "second home allowance" that his terms of reference expressly prohibited him from dealing with any such cases where the member in question was under investigation before 20 July by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, or at any stage by the police.

In this process, the police were not acting as agents on behalf of the Speaker or Lord Speaker conducting inquiries on their behalf. They were performing their responsibilities of conducting investigations into evidence of possible crime. This approach was entirely consistent with the Memorandum submitted by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards investigating complaints of misuse of his allowances by Mr Michael Trend, then a member of Parliament.

In the report dated 13 th February he recorded, at paragraph 46,. From the opinion of the Clerk of the House to Mr Speaker dated 9 th September , we know that in the event of any question of parliamentary privilege arising in any forthcoming trial, "the House would certainly be represented in any hearing on admissibility of evidence" and that the solicitor acting for at least one of the defendants was assured on 4 March that " the House reserves the right to intervene in any case before the courts, in order to prevent what it considers to be an inappropriate use of privileged material".

In short, it is reasonable for us to anticipate that if the present proceedings were believed by Parliament itself to constitute a potential breach of privilege, that view would have been made known to the court. Although in our examination of the question whether parliamentary privilege arises we must make our own decision on the facts and the law, it is not without significance that on this issue of principle Parliament decided that it is not appropriate to intervene either in the context of the police investigation, or the decision of the Director of Public Prosecutions that there should be a prosecution, nor indeed in the context of the hearing before Saunders J and before us.

We must address some of the remaining submissions advanced on behalf of the defendants. While it can fairly be described as making a statement, the submission of a claim for expenses does not involve the member in question making a statement in, or to, either House or to a Committee of either House. But that does not assist these defendants, and we do not have to address it.

Even if article 9, or some wider privilege, might render a particular statement immune from suit if made in either House or to a Committee of either House, it does not follow that the same statement should be immune from suit when made in different circumstances; the question is whether privilege attaches to the particular circumstances in which the "statement" is made, and whether those circumstances attract the privileges necessary for the proper functioning of Parliament.

A claim for expenses is not submitted to any other member of the House, nor even to the Speaker or Lord Speaker or to his or her office: it is submitted to an official in the Fees Office, and although that official is appointed by and is an agent of, the House, he is not officiating in connection with the business carried on within the Chamber or within a committee. He is merely carrying out an administrative task, albeit one mandated by the relevant House, and one subject to the detailed rules approved by that House.

More specifically, it seems to us that submitting a claim for expenses has nothing to do with "the need to ensure the member's entitlement to speak freely without fear"; nor does it involve the exercise of his or her "real" or "essential" functions or his or her "core activities".

It is true that a member may need to spend money and recover expenses or allowances in order to perform these functions, but that does not render the incurring and claiming of expenses or allowances a core or essential activity of Parliament: indeed the incurring and claiming of expenses would be, as we have already suggested, classic ancillary activities.

If it were otherwise, a member travelling to and from Parliament might be thought to be immune from prosecution for dangerous driving, or evading payment for his rail ticket.

In truth, it is impossible to see how subjecting dishonest claims for expenses to criminal investigation would offend against the rationale for parliamentary privilege, or obstruct any member of the House from performing his or her duties.

It was suggested on the defendants' behalf that the correct approach should be for privilege to attach to any dealing that a member might have with the House, in his capacity as such. That has its initial attraction, but on examination the consequences would be strange. Thus, for example, if a member were to assault an official of the Fees Office because his claim for expenses was refused or delayed, this would surely be ordinary crime which happened to be committed in Parliament by a member of Parliament: it would be an insult to Parliament to dignify it with some adjective or epithet which implied otherwise, or excuse it on the basis of parliamentary privilege.

And, precisely the same principle would apply if the official of the Fees Office assaulted the member of the House. Violent actions by either would have nothing to do with the exercise by the member, or for that matter, the official, of his parliamentary responsibilities. It would therefore be curious if privilege were to apply to the member who defrauded the Fees Office by submitting a false claim for expenses to the very same official.

It was further suggested that the expenses reimbursement system was set up, administered and closely regulated by parliament, and that its administration and decision-making processes should, as was conceded by the prosecution, be subject to parliamentary privilege.

We have already addressed this concession, and its withdrawal. It was argued that it is impossible to fillet out the submission of a claim for expenses from the rest of the exercise and conclude that the claim alone is exempted from the principles of privilege.

However this case is concerned, exclusively, with the submission of such claims. We are solely concerned with applications made by individual members. It was further submitted that, consistently with Bradlaugh v Gossett and Re McGuinness , the decision to set up, and the terms of the system could not be subject to the court's jurisdiction. Be that as it may, it does not then follow that the dishonest operation of this system by individual members is excluded from it.

Therefore, although an attempt to seek judicial review of any decision of the Fees Office might be refused either on the ground of an alternative remedy, that is, the right to refer the matter to a parliamentary committee, whose decision in turn could not be challenged for reasons of parliamentary privilege, or additionally on the basis that the implementation of the scheme might constitute a proceeding in Parliament, it does not follow as a matter of logic, convenience or principle, that the dishonest actions by a member when making his claim should be immune from criminal prosecution.

Some, albeit limited, reliance was also placed on the discussion about the register of members' interests in the report of the Joint Committee.

It is hard to draw much assistance from the discussion because the report proceeds on the basis that it is an "area of uncertainty", and it is quite possible to treat an entry in the register as a formal statement direct to the House for what the Committee described as "the better conduct of its business". The same cannot be said about the expenses reimbursement scheme, where the claim by an individual member cannot sensibly be treated as a statement to the House, subject to privilege on the basis of freedom of speech or the proceedings of the House.

In the end, while the system enables a member better to perform his duties, it is not directly concerned with the conduct of the business of the House or his responsibilities there: at the very most, it is ancillary to them. Conclusion If we may respectfully say so, we are not in the least surprised that no attempt has been made by the Speaker or Lord Speaker to seek to intervene in these proceedings, nor even to draw the attention of the court to any potential difficulty in the context of parliamentary privilege, nor even to ask the court to reflect on the possibility that parliamentary privilege may be engaged.

It can confidently be stated that parliamentary privilege or immunity from criminal prosecution has never ever attached to ordinary criminal activities by members of Parliament. With the necessary exception in relation to the exercise of freedom of speech, it is difficult to envisage circumstances in which the performance of the core responsibilities of a member of Parliament might require or permit him or her to commit crime, or in which the commission of crime could form part of the proceedings in the House for the purposes of article 9 of the Bill of Rights.

Equally we cannot discern from principle or authority that privilege or immunity in relation to such conduct may arise merely because the allegations are based on activities which have taken place "within the walls" of Parliament. The stark reality is that the defendants are alleged to have taken advantage of the allowances scheme designed to enable them to perform their important public duties as members of Parliament to commit crimes of dishonesty to which parliamentary immunity or privilege does not, has never, and, we believe, never would attach.

If the allegations are proved, and we emphasise, if they are proved, then those against whom they are proved will have committed ordinary crimes. Even stretching language to its limits we are unable to envisage how dishonest claims by members of Parliament for their expenses or allowances begin to involve the legislative or core functions of the relevant House, or the proper performance of their important public duties.

In our judgment no question of privilege arises, and the ordinary process of the criminal justice system should take its normal course, unaffected by any groundless anxiety that they might constitute an infringement of the principles of parliamentary privilege. The decision of Saunders J was correct. The appeals will be dismissed.

Reporting Restrictions At the hearing before Saunders J, in a careful ruling reflecting the provisions of section 37 of the Act, he concluded that while his judgment should not be subject to reporting restrictions, the hearing itself, and therefore the submissions advanced to him should not be published. His judgment was widely reported. The precise terms of his order need no attention.

The same question was raised in the context of the present appeals against his decision. We addressed the question of reporting restrictions, and the extent to which, if any, the statutory restrictions on reporting should be lifted on 29 June. We decided that there should be no such restrictions. These are our reasons. Section 37 of the Act provides:. Subsections 8 and 9 disapply the provisions relating to reporting restrictions, but for the purposes of the present appeal their recital is unnecessary.

The critical statutory provision therefore is that no report of the proceedings, and these appeals in particular, should be made unless this court is satisfied, and only if it is satisfied, that it is in the interests of justice for the proceedings to be reported.

The statutory prohibition, and the circumstances in which it may be lifted, are both expressed in unequivocal terms. They derive from the relatively new concept of the preparatory hearing, introduced in serious or complex fraud cases by the Criminal Justice Act In effect, in an appropriate case, rulings of law, including rulings relating to the admissibility of evidence, may be made before the case is opened to the jury.

No one in the present appeals suggested that the extension of the preparatory hearing procedure under the Act did not or should not apply to the question raised before and addressed by Saunders J. Significantly, however, he was not examining the admissibility of evidence said by the Crown to establish that any of the appellants acted dishonestly. Indeed, as it seemed to us, none of the matters which would arise for consideration at any future trial had or could have had any bearing on our decision whether the principles of parliamentary privilege apply.

In other words the appeals had nothing to do with any alleged dishonesty. They were confined to a narrow but important issue of constitutional law. The position of the appellants was not identical.

The three former members of Parliament objected to the making of any order: the member of the House of Lords took the same position, but with the important variation that if the reporting restrictions did not extend to the judgment, then it should be open to the media to publish the submissions advanced on his behalf.

By the time the argument was advanced before us, the submissions on all sides addressed the practical reality that once the judgment of Saunders J had been given, the prospect of this court declining to permit publication of its own judgment was remote in the extreme.

The essential argument related to publication of the arguments and submissions on behalf of the appellants and the Crown. In their submissions before Saunders J and those advanced to us, close attention was paid to the media coverage of the broad issue of the expenses claimed by members of Parliament, with particular reference to these cases. We studied all this material. We understand that if the appeals in relation to parliamentary privilege are not sustained, it will be submitted to Saunders J that the proceedings should be stopped in any event on the grounds that a fair trial cannot now take place.

The issue of abuse of process was not before us for decision, and nothing in this judgment should be taken as an indication, either way, of any view that the court may have formed. In essence, however, it was submitted that following the press conference held by the Director of Public Prosecutions of 5 February , there was a "wave of media reporting", which included coverage of comments by senior national political figures, in which, so it was argued, the appellants were criticised for the fact that the issue of Parliamentary privilege had arisen, and indeed that in reality they were guilty of these offences and, but for the parliamentary privilege issue, they were bereft of any defence.

Complaint was also made that following the committal proceedings, a great deal of media reporting flouted the automatic reporting restrictions provided by section 8 1 of the Magistrates Court Act Another issue which attracted public criticism related to the successful applications by three of the defendants for Legal Aid. The material before us drew attention to letter columns in newspapers, coverage and comment away from what is described as the mainstream press, numerous Facebook threads, and Google searches.

All these matters, and we have summarised them in broad outline without giving specific examples, will no doubt be deployed at any abuse of process hearing.

However they also formed part of the background in which we examined the contention that it would be contrary to the interests of justice for the restrictions on reporting of the proceedings in this court to be lifted. Reliance was placed on the emphatic language used in the judgment of Griffiths LJ in R v Leeds JJs ex p Sykes []1 WLR at AB, in the context of section 8 2A of the Magistrates Court Act the Act , which prohibited the reporting of committal proceedings unless the court, and only if the court was satisfied that the interests of justice required it.

He observed:. He reflected that "the interests of justice incorporate as a paramount consideration that the defendants should have a fair trial…if the ground of objection is that the very reason that led Parliament to provide that, as a general rule, proceedings should not be reported, namely that there is a risk that the proceedings if the proceedings are widely reported, the reports may colour the views of the jury which ultimately has to try the case", then the ban on reporting should remain.

The obvious correctness of this approach is beyond argument. The provisions of section 37 of the Act differ from section 8 2A of the Act, under consideration in ex parte Sykes. That said, however, both as a matter of first impression, and after careful reflection, whatever other consideration may arise, it is an inevitable consequence of statutory references to the interests of justice in the context of reporting restrictions of proposed criminal proceedings, that if the fairness of any subsequent trial would thereby be prejudiced, the restrictions on reporting should remain.

And for present purposes we could see no distinction between the entitlement to a fair trial at common law, so vividly described by Lord Bingham of Cornhill CJ as the "birthright" of every citizen in this jurisdiction, and the provisions of Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights, which requires that any criminal trial should take place before an "independent and impartial tribunal".

There are equally well established principles, both at common law, and under the Convention, that criminal proceedings should normally take place in public, and that the media generally provides an essential element in the process by which open justice, and ultimately a fair trial, is secured.

There is, however, a distinction between the criminal trial which, assuming it runs smoothly, results in a verdict, and if the defendant is convicted, sentence, and the arrangements relating to a preparatory hearing, which, whatever its outcome, does not culminate in a conviction and sentence.

In that respect, it is similar to the committal proceedings in contemplation in the Act, and as such is part of the process by which the case is eventually heard by a jury. On the other hand, while committal proceedings under the Act did not represent nor form part of the trial, at the Crown Court the preparatory hearing is part of the trial itself. That led us on to this further reflection, that in the course of any trial, submissions and argument on questions of law, such as admissibility of evidence, or whether there is a case to answer, are conducted in the absence of the jury and are never reported, at least until the trial is concluded.

The reason is simple: if they were, the fairness of the trial process might be impugned. In the end once the trial has concluded, the reporting restrictions no longer apply, so that the process of public disclosure of the arguments is merely postponed, not permanently banned. These considerations help to explain the clear statutory restriction on reporting of the preparatory hearing, or any appeal arising from the decision in the preparatory hearing.

The fairness of the trial before the jury is paramount. The obvious public importance of the issue of parliamentary privilege which will be addressed in these appeals does not and cannot represent such an overwhelming and unusual feature that it should, in effect, outweigh the statutory provisions. The imperative is a fair trial, and that imperative cannot be compromised. All that said, we had no difficulty with the proposition that the issue of Parliamentary privilege, as it may apply in the present case, is of sufficient importance to require us to address the question whether the statutory prohibition on reporting should be lifted.

Moreover, as we have said, it was highly significant that the arguments on the appeal, and the eventual judgment, had nothing whatever to do with any of the facts or evidence relied on by the prosecution or the defence on the dishonesty question.

On the face of it there would be no need for anyone, in any of the appeals, on either side, or for that matter for the court, to examine the evidence bearing on the issue of dishonesty, or to make any observations about the evidence, at any rate, in any way which could or might affect the jury at trial.

These proceedings relate to the nature and ambit of Parliamentary privilege, and nothing more. That is not a question which will ever be addressed by or arise for the decision of the jury. So, taking the starting point as the statutory prohibition, we examined the concerns relating to the possible impact of the removal of reporting restrictions on any later trial based on what the appellants contended was the unfair reporting and comment which has attended these proceedings, effectively from the very outset.

We understand these concerns, but we do not agree that there is any realistic prospect that a future trial might be prejudiced by the removal of reporting restrictions. If not, the public interest in the issue of principle raised in the appeal assumed significant importance.

We were informed that an open letter has been written on behalf of the large number of media organisations comprising most of the main television and print media in this country. We are assured that the media "have no desire to jeopardise the trial". They believe that there is a "genuine legitimate public interest in reporting the argument as it proceeds, and not merely the judgment".

It is pointed out that since the concerns expressed by Saunders J about some previous publicity, the Attorney General issued guidance to the media on 7 th June , and that the judgment of Saunders J itself gave further directions to the media about the need to avoid prejudicial comment, and that there has been no direct criticism of the way in which the media covered Saunders J's judgment. We have no power to prevent media reporting of the fact of this appeal, or of any of the specific matters identified in section 37 9 of the Act.

Irresponsible reporting, prejudicial to the fair trial of the appellants, will be dealt with under the Contempt of Court Act , and would, in any event, be deployed by counsel on behalf of the appellants as additional material, reinforcing the submission that the publicity engendered by the case as a whole had damaged the prospects of a fair trial.

We satisfied ourselves that honest and responsible reporting of the proceedings, including the arguments and submissions on each side would not undermine the prospects of a fair trial of the issues to be resolved by the jury. As the issue in the appeals involves purely legal questions of importance to our constitutional arrangements, we concluded that the public interest required that reporting restrictions should be lifted, and that this could be safely ordered without any consequent diminution in the prospect of a fair trial.

Accordingly we made the order. The order was subject to two further considerations. First, if any counsel decided that it was appropriate or necessary for his submissions to address questions of fact or evidence which in due course would be considered by a trial jury, he could indicate it in advance, and we would consider whether to impose a temporary restriction on any reporting. In the event this did not arise. Second, we emphasised that the need for responsible reporting of the proceedings extended to the reporting of the ruling which we gave on 29 th June.

Three senior judges heard that the defendants did "not suggest that MPs are immune from the criminal law by reason of their status as MPs". Nigel Pleming QC, for Chaytor, told the packed court: "This is not an attempt to take these defendants above the law. The central submission on their behalf was that any investigation into their expenses claims and the imposition of any sanctions "should lie within the hands of Parliament".

He rejected argument that they were protected by parliamentary privilege and should be dealt with by Parliament alone. It was said by the defendants that submitting an expenses form was part of the proceedings of Parliament, and therefore protected by parliamentary privilege. Mr Pleming told the court that the men submitted that "they have immunity from prosecution arising solely from the performance of their functions, or acts ancillary to the performance of those functions, as MPs when they were MPs".

He is also accused of falsely filing invoices for IT work and renting a property from his mother, against regulations. Lord Hanningfield, who is also known as Paul White, 69, of West Hanningfield, near Chelmsford, faces six charges of making dishonest claims for travelling allowances. Each of the four defendants, who are all on unconditional bail, face separate criminal trials, pending the outcome of the appeal. At the start of the proceedings, the appeal judges lifted statutory reporting restrictions which are normally applied to preparatory hearings in criminal matters.

Lord Judge said that the single issue in the appeal was "an issue of constitutional importance". Under sections 37 and 38 of the Act, it is a criminal offence to report anything about such a hearing other than:. The Court has lifted that reporting restriction, on the application of the media, but only so as to allow reporting of the Judgment in addition to the matters specified above. It will therefore remain unlawful to report anything else which may be said or done at the hearing. Three former Labour MPs facing criminal charges over their expenses will have their legal fees paid by the taxpayer.

Tory peer Lord Hanningfield, who also faces charges, has not applied for legal aid. All four deny the charges. The court was told he would also argue he was covered by Parliamentary privilege.

All four were given unconditional bail. The three MPs and the year-old peer are accused of stealing money by abusing the Parliamentary allowance system. It took the clerk nearly ten minutes to read all the charges. They covered allegedly false claims involving houses, overnight allowances and stationery and carry jail sentences of up to seven years. He stressed that the three were not claiming to be above the law because Parliamentary privilege was part of the law.

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