Jared O’Mara has been sentenced to four years in jail. He will serve two years in custody before being released on licence. That’s twice as long as he served the people of Sheffield Hallam…
His Chief of Staff Gareth Arnold – the one who first alerted police to his boss’s fraud – received a 15-month sentence suspended for two years. O’Mara tried claiming his autism limited his culpability – the judge pithily summed up that “You knew perfectly well what you were doing – you were behaving perfectly rationally and were using your autism to extract funds from IPSA to fund your cocaine and alcohol driven lifestyle.”
This is the moment Jared O’Mara’s parliamentary staffer, Gareth Arnold, grassed his boss for submitting fake expense claims to fund his cocaine habit. Arnold, who himself was also found guilty of fraud in court yesterday, can be heard telling a 999 responder “I’m the person that inputs [O’Mara’s] claims for him”, explaining how the ex-Labour MP had defrauded the taxpayer “to the tune of thousands of pounds”. Both are expected to receive their sentences imminently…
Ex-Labour MP Jared O’Mara has been found guilty of six counts of expenses fraud, totalling around £30,000. The judge, summarising the case, said O’Mara had forged invoices to fund his “extravagant lifestyle: drink, cigarettes and, above all, cocaine.” The good news for O’Mara is he was at least cleared of two other charges. The bad news is he’ll be sentenced for six counts of fraud in the same court tomorrow…
Jared O’Mara’s trial is reaching its conclusion, and the court was once again regaled with tales of the disgraced Labour MP’s exploits. The prosecution didn’t hold any punches, as he told the court Jared was “thoroughly rotten” and “thoroughly inadequate” – he was accused of “stuffing the parliamentary payroll with mates and cronies” to fund his “galloping” coke habit. Jared also became convinced that people in the commons “had it in for him and was refusing to pay his invoices”. Jared held one man responsible for this conspiracy – John Bercow.
“Arnold also said O’Mara was ‘convinced’ former Commons speaker John Bercow ‘had it in for him’ and was ‘refusing to pay his invoices’ in June 2019”
As final details of Jared’s cocaine-fuelled conspiracies came out, the nature of his criminal mastermind was revealed to the court. This meant getting the details right for each of his ploys. No doubt this is why when it came to picking an address for his fraudulent charity, Jared picked the Penistone Road McDonalds. Of course, he also had to be discrete, which is why he developed codewords – for cocaine it was “goose”. This was evidenced in one message sent to O’Mara:
“I’ll walk down. Invite the goose as well. I’ll bring the OJ and make sure you’ve got ample fags”
Guido never pulls his punches on the topic of the odious John Bercow, though even he reckons Jared has no one to blame but himself…
As Jared O’Mara’s fraud trial rumbles on, with increasingly salacious allegations emerging by the day, Guido was struck by one revelation from yesterday’s proceedings. A text message from one of Jared’s co-defendants alleged:
“You got sh*tfaced before a Look North TV interview and then harassed a female member of staff.”
With the court hearing the disgraced Labour MP had downed a litre of vodka beforehand. Well, Guido has managed to track down the interview in question above. He holds up surprisingly well, all things considered…