Sheffield Hallam’s Jared O’Mara sought £30,000 in taxpayer funding to support a “severe cocaine habit,” the court heard.
A former Labour member of parliament was convicted of fraud for submitting false expenses to fuel a cocaine habit while in office.
Leeds Crown Court tried former Sheffield Hallam representative Jared O’Mara for “dishonest” invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa).
He was accused of claiming up to £30,000 from taxpayers to maintain a “extravagant lifestyle” of drink, cigarettes, and cocaine.
O’Mara, 41, was in “poor mental health” and consuming “prodigious quantities” of class A narcotics, the court heard.
On Wednesday, the jury found him guilty of six charges of fraud and acquitted him of two.
Gareth Arnold was found guilty of three of six fraud charges, while John Woodliff was acquitted of one.
On Thursday, O’Mara and Arnold, both 30 years old, will be sentenced in the same court.
O’Mara filed four claims with Confident About Autism South Yorkshire between June and August 2019.
They also learned that he submitted two invoices for media and PR work from his “chief of staff,” Gareth Arnold. Prosecutors assert that no work was performed.
Ipsa, the organization established after the expenses crisis to monitor MPs’ personnel and business expenditures, did not pay out any of the claims due to a lack of evidence that any of the work was performed, the court in Leeds was informed.
Jurors were informed that O’Mara had a “dysfunctional” office and fired the majority of his employees “overnight” in April 2019.
Investigations indicated that O’Mara was “living above or beyond his means and needed cash.”
James Bourne-Arton, the prosecutor, stated that Arnold and Woodliff were “old pals of Jared O’Mara who were regrettably convinced to go along with his dishonest assertions”
Arnold called South Yorkshire Police in the summer of 2019 after “reaching a stage where he was no longer ready to participate in the deception,” the court heard.
Arnold stated in a phone call that was played for the jury, “It’s a bit of a tough situation, but yesterday I spoke with the 999 services and the mental health crisis team about my employer whom I feel is experiencing a major psychotic episode and has delusions of a conspiracy against him.
I also suspect he has recently submitted fraudulent expense claims to the government.
After a series of issues, O’Mara left Labour after winning Sheffield Hallam in 2017.
He remained in office as an independent representative but did not run for reelection in 2019.
