Jury told not to treat MP Devine differently in expenses trial

THE jury in the trial of a former MP accused of fiddling his expenses was today urged not to treat him differently from anybody else.

Jim Devine, 57, the former Livingston MP, is on trial at Southwark Crown Court for falsely claiming almost 9,000 from the public purse.

Giving his closing speech, Gavin Millar QC, defending, said: "Jim Devine asks you to give him no special treatment when you discuss this case."

But the barrister urged the jurors not to go too far the other way and set a higher standard for Devine.

He said: "There may be a temptation in this case to apply a more demanding standard of honesty because he was an MP."

Addressing the jury of six men and six women, Mr Millar said if Devine wanted to clear his overdraft, as the prosecution say, he would not falsify invoices to the tune of a few hundred pounds.

He said: "Why would Mr Devine go to the lengths of photocopying a blank invoice and persuading someone to write a lie on it for 180?

"The crown can't have their cake and eat it. Either he wanted to get rid of his overdraft of thousands and thousands of pounds or he didn't.

"180 is hardly going to make a difference."

Devine faces three counts of false accounting.

The first count is in respect of two invoices from Tom O'Donnell Hygiene and Cleaning of 180 each.

Count two refers to three other invoices on Tom O'Donnell headed paper for 360, 360 and 2,160.

The total amount he is accused of falsely claiming for cleaning services between July 2008 and May 2009 equals 3,240.

The third count alleges that between March 2009 and April 2009, Devine dishonestly claimed 5,505 for stationery from Armstrong Printing Limited using two false invoices.

Devine, of West Main Street, Bathgate, West Lothian, denies all three charges.

Mr Millar said the first count against Devine relates to claims he made for cleaning in July 2008, almost three years after he was voted into parliament.

He said: "The crown have not alleged any criminality before.

"Why did Mr Devine suddenly become a criminal three years into his parliamentary career?"

The barrister said Devine's former office manager, Marion Kinley, embarked on a "vendetta" against her boss after she went on sick leave in 2007.

He said: "After Marion Kinley went off sick she was talking to the press in Scotland."

Devine said he faced accusations from journalists about why she was paid so much money.

Mr Millar said: "The suspicion was that he was having an affair."

The barrister went through the three counts faced by Devine, and told the jury they should acquit his client on all three.

Mr Millar said the first count relies on the jury believing the evidence given by Tom O'Donnell in the witness box.

Referring to a legitimate invoice, he said: "The first Tom O'Donnell invoice which Mr Devine used to make claims to the fees office is not an issue."

The pub landlord and cleaning company owner said he gave Devine only one blank receipt.

Mr Millar told the jury that the two receipts in the first count Devine faces for 180 each were actually written out by either Mr O'Donnell, or the Polish cleaner employed by him, Larissa.

With regard to the second count, the lawyer said the three invoices had originally been given to Devine as separate blank invoices by Mr O'Donnell, and that they were filled out by a second group of cleaning workers, headed up by another woman called Larissa.

Throughout the trial, the two Larissas have been referred to as "Larissa number one" and "Larissa number two", in an attempt to limit confusion.

Mr Millar said the prosecution case is that Devine asked someone to fraudulently fill in the blank invoices, so he could make false claims.

He asked the jury: "Doesn't this get unlikelier and unlikelier with each new accomplice?"

Dealing with the third charge, Mr Millar said Devine found himself with a problem with his staffing budget.

He had employed a woman who is known in the trial as "Miss X" because Devine refused to name her, and he was still paying Ms Kinley when she was on sick leave.

Devine claims he was told by a fellow MP that he was able to transfer money from his communication allowance to cover his staffing costs.

Steve McCabe, MP for the Birmingham Sellyoak constituency, said from the witness box that the alleged conversation in the Strangers Bar in the House of Commons never took place.

Mr Millar said that was unsurprising.

"MPs have had enough of the expenses scandal," he said.

"Those that have survived it want to distance themselves as much as possible.

"That includes distancing themselves from Jim Devine."

The trial continues.