Fraud MP Margaret Moran given supervision order

By TIM MOYNIHAN
Published on 15/12/2012 00:00

FORMER Labour MP Margaret Moran has received a supervision and treatment order for fiddling her expenses, after a court heard she had suffered from depression.

Mr Justice Saunders admitted that some people might think she had “got away with it” by avoiding a criminal conviction.

But he said all the evidence in the case was that Moran was unfit to plead because of a depressive illness. He gave her the two-year order for fiddling expenses to receive more than £53,000 from the taxpayer.

Moran, 57, who represented Luton South for 13 years, claimed nearly her entire annual allowance in one bogus expense entry, and forged invoices for more than £20,000 for non-existent goods and services.

Dr Simon Kelly, from the Priory Hospital in Southampton, said Moran was “severely ill”.