Parliamentary Expenses Scandal
Moran was involved in the 2009 Parliamentary expenses scandal, when the Daily Telegraph revealed she had claimed £22,500 on expenses to treat dry rot in a house 100 miles from her constituency. As a result she announced that she would stand down at the 2010 election. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards began an investigation into her conduct. Moran was also caught up in another scandal in March 2010 when she was one of four retiring Labour MPs who were found to have offered their services as paid lobbyists to an undercover reporter. According to the Telegraph on 13 October 2010 detectives from the Met Police had spent several months looking into expenses claims made by her and she was expected to be charged within weeks for false accounting or fraud. She would have been the fifth Labour MP to be charged, the others being former Labour MPs David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Eric Illsley and former Labour Minister Elliot Morley, whilst a sixth serving Labour MP and former Minister Denis MacShane has been suspended from the Labour Party as well.
On 6 September 2011 it was announced by the Crown Prosecution Service that Moran would face 21 criminal charges for wrongful expense claims. While Moran was assessed as unfit to plead, the Jury still considered the case and she was convicted of the offences by a Court in November 2012.
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