Jury told not to feel sorry for expenses claim peer

Lord Taylor of Warwick, 58, is accused of claiming travel costs between a home in Oxford and London, and for night subsistence, when he actually lived in the capital. He denies six charges of false accounting at Southwark Crown Court in London.

In her closing speech yesterday, Helen Law, prosecuting, told the jury of seven men and five women that the case was about "where Lord Taylor was living and where he wasn't living".

Speaking of the trips for which he claimed, she said: "Those were journeys that didn't happen from a home that wasn't his. Lord Taylor knew those facts and he said he didn't attempt to mislead anyone.

"I'm going to suggest that, as a lawyer and as a member of the House of Lords, the alarm bells would have been ringing loud and clear."

She told the jury they should not feel sorry for the peer.

"Firstly, it's not about sympathy. Just because your job doesn't pay you much doesn't mean you can put your hand in the till.

"You ask for a pay rise, and you explain why it isn't enough. If it doesn't go up, you leave and you get another job," she said.

Ms Law reminded the jurors what another peer, Lord Colwyn, had said during the trial: "You don't have to be a peer."

She went on to say that the former Tory should not be seen as a "scapegoat".

"It is Lord Taylor alone, and not the system, that is on trial," she said. "Even if Lord Taylor was telling you the truth when he said that other people were doing the same as him, even if there were others doing the same - that's not a defence."

Lord Taylor, from Ealing, west London, denies the allegations of false accounting on various dates between March 2006 and October 2007.

The case was adjourned until today, when the judge is expected to finish summing up.