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November 5th, 2009 |

Not So Wise - Former MEP Faces Prison.

It’s pretty shocking that someone who used to help represent our area in the European Parliament is now facing jail for false accounting.

Tom Wise was elected as an MEP for the UK Independence Party for the Eastern region, although they later expelled him. He is facing jail for a £36,000 expenses fiddle.

As the Guardian reports:

A former British MEP who masterminded a £36,000 expenses fiddle was facing jail today after he confessed during his trial.

Tom Wise, 61, had been charged with false accounting and money-laundering after an investigation into claims that he misused thousands of pounds of expenses.

Originally elected for the UK Independence party, Wise sat as an independent after being expelled from the party.

The former policeman, whose term of office in the European parliament came to an end in July this year, spent a year channelling taxpayers’ cash into a bank account he secretly controlled.

He pretended the £3,000 “secretarial assistance allowance” he received every month was for his 62-year-old researcher Lindsay Jenkins.

After paying her just £500, he spent the rest “in support of his own interests”, London’s Southwark crown court was told….

The Telegraph covers the story here.

Category: Essex & East, National Politics, UKIP | Subscribe to comments | Click here to leave a comment | Trackback URL

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