John Taylor, Baron Taylor of Warwick - Criminal Convictions For False Accounting

Criminal Convictions For False Accounting

On 16 July 2010, Taylor resigned the Tory Whip as he had been charged with six offences of false accounting, claiming more than £11,000 in overnight subsistence and mileage claims. He appeared before the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court in August 2010.

On 25 January 2011, at Southwark Crown Court before Mr Justice Saunders, Taylor was found guilty by the jury which delivered majority verdicts (11 votes to 1) on six counts of false accounting, relating to a total of £11,277.80 in false parliamentary expenses claims. The first such claim was for £1,555.70, the second for £2,042.80, the third was £1,600.70, the fourth £2,309.50, the fifth £2,421.80, and the final claim was for £1,347. He had claimed that his main residence was in Oxford, at an address which was occupied by his nephew and the nephew's partner (who owned the premises). Taylor actually lived in Ealing, West London and had no home in Oxford.

Taylor had claimed payment of travel costs between what he claimed was his Oxford home and Westminster, as well as subsistence expenses for staying in London. As prosecution counsel put it in her closing submissions to the jury, the claims were for journeys which he did not make, from a home which was not his. He nonetheless argued that the six claims he had submitted were made in good faith and that it was the practice for such false claims for expenses to be made, in order to give rise to payments in the nature of allowances, since peers did not receive a salary. He also claimed that he had been acting on the advice of colleagues. On 31 May 2011 he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. He was released in September 2011 after serving three months of this sentence, under the home detention curfew scheme.

Taylor was disbarred in May 2012.