It has just got worse for Bill Wiggin. He now says that the invoice Guido highlighted yesterday for room hire was actually used for other things. There’s a word for that…

His statement doesn’t dig him out of his hole:

“The Association secretary was acting as Mr Wiggin’s constituency secretary during the period of 12 months ended 31st March 2007 which meant that she dealt with parliamentary business as well as surgeries. Thus the invoice of £5,000 authorised and paid by the Parliamentary Fees Office in May 2007 covered the whole cost to the Association of parliamentary business as well as organising surgeries for Mr Wiggin during that 12 months. This covered the secretary’s time, telephone, postage, printing and related costs not just room hire for the various venues. Surgeries took place approximately every fortnight in various venues around the constituency which included Tenbury Wells, Ledbury, Bromyard, Kington and villages as well as Leominster itself.”

Yet the invoice explicitly stated the money was specifically for room hire “in the association office”:

By his own admission this claim is false.

Wiggin also said on the phone that he did not write the invoice. Obviously not, but he did expense it from the Fees Office, thus if his statement is true, he knowingly put in a false claim. Jim Devine, facing sentencing next week, got into trouble for using fake invoices from printers to spend taxpayers money on other things, such as staff. Or so he said.