UK lawmaker imprisoned for abuse of post

LONDON, Jan. 10 – A former U.K. Labor lawmaker last week Friday became the first member of parliament to be jailed for his part in an expenses scandal that disgraced British politics in 2009.
David Chaytor was sentenced to 18 months in prison, having already pleaded guilty to three charges of false accounting last month. He was forced to stand down from his Bury North seat in northern England before his court appearance.
After first denying the charges, he eventually pleaded guilty to making two sets of false expenses claims for rent on two flats from 2005-6 and 2007-8, totaling some ñ8,350. He also pleaded guilty for falsely claiming ñ,950 in IT support services in May 2006.
He becomes the highest profile U.K. politician to be sentenced since Conservative minister Jonathan Aitken was jailed for fraud and perjury in 1999.
Chaytor, 61, is the one of six lawmakers who have been charged as a result of the expenses scandal, which broke in May 2009 when The Daily Telegraph newspaper started publishing details of years of questionable claims by lawmakers.
The scandal led hundreds of lawmakers from all parties to repay some expense claims, including former Labor Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Conservative successor David Cameron.
Chaytor, a former university lecturer, entered parliament in 1997 and remained a backbench lawmaker throughout the previous Labor government’s 13 years in power.