Ex-MP Jared O'Mara sentenced to 4 years over fraud to feed cocaine habit
Former MP Jared O’Mara has been sentenced to four years in prison for expenses fraud to feed his cocaine habit.
O’Mara, 41 was convicted yesterday of six counts of fraud, after he and members of his staff attempted to submit fake expense claims worth £24,000 in the name of a fictitious disability support charity.
Sentencing disgraced former politician, Judge Tom Bayliss KC told him: “You abused your position as a Member of Parliament to commit fraud. You have not shown a single degree of remorse.”
Jurors at Leeds Crown Court were told O’Mara, branded “dishonest” and “rotten” by the prosecution, used the cash to fund an “extravagant” lifestyle and a “galloping” cocaine habit.
The ex-Labour MP made headlines after ousting Lib Dem Nick Clegg, the former Deputy Prime Minister, from his seat in Sheffield Hallam.
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But he was almost immediately rocked by scandal, after a string of misogynistic and homophobic message board posts emerged, alongside allegations of about his behaviour while working as a bar manager and DJ at the city’s West Street Live venue.
After being suspended - then reinstated - by Labour, he left the party in 2018, claiming he had not been made to “feel welcome.”
The Mirror revealed O’Mara’s arrest on suspicion of fraud in August 2019, after police had been alerted to the fake invoices by Gareth Arnold, his chief of staff.
Arnold was sentenced to 15 months, suspended for two years.
O'Mara was convicted on six counts of fraud (South Yorkshire Police / SWNS.CO)
Former Chief of Staff Gareth Arnold was convicted on three of six charges (South Yorkshire Police / SWNS.CO)Arnold was jointly charged with six of the eight offences O’Mara faced in court.
O’Mara was convicted of six offences, while Arnold was convicted of three.
John Woodliff, a former bouncer at West Street Live, was cleared of one charge of fraud.
During the trial, jurors were told of Mr O’Mara’s “prodigious” cocaine habit, consuming up to 5g of the class A drug a day, along with booze and 60 cigarettes.
O’Mara’s family would deliver bottles of vodka and Mountain Dew and packets of cigarettes to his Sheffield flat on an almost daily basis, Arnold claimed under questioning in court.
Leeds Crown Court heard he made four claims for a total of £19,400 from a "fictitious" organisation called Confident About Autism South Yorkshire (CAASY), which jurors were told referred to his friend John Woodliff.
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O'Mara was also found to have submitted a false contract of employment for Woodliff, pretending he worked as a constituency support officer.
Mr Woodliff, who effectively became a “personal assistant” to O’Mara, said he would go to his flat and “pretty much get him up because he just lay in bed all day”.
The prosecution said his work involved tidying up the pizza boxes strewn around O’Mara’s flat and helping him get dressed.
Mr Woodliff was cleared by the jury of having any role in the fraud.
O'Mara was found not guilty of two fraud charges over invoices from Arnold, for media and PR work that prosecutors claimed was never carried out.
But even after being arrested, he continued his attempts at fraud.
In February 2020 he emailed IPSA, falsely claiming the police investigation into him had been completed and he was entitled to be paid the two invoices relating to Arnold, which totalled £4,650.
O’Mara, who has autism and cerebral palsy, successfully petitioned to give evidence at the trial by video link - but eventually declined to speak on his own behalf.
O'Mara showed "no remorse", the Judge said (PA)After appearing the 12-day trial - and previous court hearings - remotely, he was ordered to attend today’s sentencing in person, with Judge Bayliss telling the disgraced politician that “indulgence” was over.
In the months leading up to O’Mara’s arrest, the court heard, he was in “dire need” of cash to fund his lifestyle.
The court heard that O'Mara had a "dysfunctional" office which was "haemorrhaging staff" at the time he made the claims.
Former case worker Kevin Gregory-Coyne said O'Mara went to his constituency office "once or twice" in six months and attended one staff meeting while apparently "on some sort of substance".
Arnold told the court he and O’Mara referred to cocaine by the codeword “goose”.
Arnold and O'Mara referred to cocaine as "the goose" (PA)
John Woodliff was cleared of any involvement in the fraud (PA)In one text exchange, revealed in court, Arnold told O’Mara: “I’ll walk down. Invite the goose as well. I’ll bring the OJ and make sure you’ve got ample fags”
Another message from O’Mara to a contact days before his arrest in August 2019, read: “Order 2 bags of goose. I have the hundred quid. I have 150 in fact”
He submitted falsified invoices to Parliament’s expenses watchdog, IPSA - using the postcode of a local McDonalds as the address of the bogus charity.
The invoices all looked different, and all were rejected by IPSA.
Jurors heard that one message from Arnold to a friend in April 2019 described O'Mara as being "a few k in debt with a dealer".
And Arnold went to South Yorkshire Police in July 2019 after "reaching a point at which he was no longer willing to participate in the fraud".
In his call to police, played to jurors, Arnold said: "It's a bit of a tricky one but yesterday I spoke to the 999 service and the mental health crisis team about my employer, who I believe is suffering a severe psychotic episode and has delusions of a conspiracy against him.
"I also believe he has been submitting fake expense claims to the Government very recently."
Arnold said he had "lost his patience" with O'Mara after he apparently drank a litre of vodka before a TV appearance and sent a young female staff member messages "calling her things like 'my little angel' and 'you're beautiful"'.
"Jared I tried but you got s***faced for Look North interview and harassed a female member of staff,” Arnold wrote in a text message.
“You need to be accountable for your actions, it's you who doesn't come into the office and takes cocaine instead of going to Parliament....you don't give one iota about your constituents...it's not about us VS you it's about you doing your f****** job."
Events came to a head after Arnold dramatically resigned, hijacking O’Mara’s own Twitter account to brand him “the most disgustingly morally bankrupt person I have ever had the displeasure of working with."
Opening the case to jurors just over two weeks ago, prosecutor James Bourne-Arton said: "O'Mara viewed Ipsa, and the taxpayers' money that they administered, as a source of income that was his to claim and use as he wished, not least in the enjoyment of his extensive cocaine habit."
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