From the Guardian website tonight:
A Conservative peer and former leader of Essex county council was on a plane to India when he was claiming expenses for overnight accommodation in London, a court has heard.
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Lord Hanningfield, 70, who is being tried under his name Paul White, made various “false and misleading” claims for travel and accommodation expenses between March 2006 and April 2009, Chelmsford crown court was told.
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“We will call evidence to establish that each one of Lord Hanningfield’s claims for night subsistence was false,” said prosecutor Clare Montgomery QC.
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“He never stayed overnight in London at any stage during the period in the charges.
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“On the vast majority of nights he went home to Hanningfield. On the few occasions he did not, he was not in London.
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“He was variously on a plane bound for India or at hotels outside London, all paid for by someone else, mainly Essex county council.
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“The majority of Lord Hanningfield’s travel claims in each of the six months were false: either he did not make the journeys he claimed for, [or] if he did make the journey it was paid for by Essex county council.”
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Hanningfield is charged with six counts of false accounting covering six months of House of Lords expenses claims. He denies the charges.
Full report here.