Margaret Moran - another snout in the trough.

Makes you sick! - especially when you think about all the hard-working people who pay their salaries via their taxes.

what a crook

She's done an amazing transformation from the quite glamorous and assertive MP to confused and doddery old woman in the space of a couple of years!

Didn't work, did it?

Seemingly not!

Why is it always women criminals who do the emotional collapse into depression and mental illness to avoid jail, or am I just succumbing to sexual stereo typing, Oh may be I am, didnt Ernest Saunders of Guiness manage to convince everybody he had Alzheimers so that he could avoid prison - and then make a remarkable recovery as soon as he was out of jail and in Switzerland

Likewise Nick Leeson - and the Lockerbie bomber (can't spell his name) - ok he died eventually, but a long time after we were told he was being repatriated as he was at death's door.

I was listening to this. Given the complexity of the fraud she perpertrated, she cleary wasn't suffering from mental illness at the time.

Yep Ernest Saunders happened to get Alzheimers while in prison only to recover when released. It's amazing what prison can do. They can't reform criminals but they sure can cure dementia in those with friends in high places.

cynical

Most of us are never in the position of ever being able to get access to the sort of money or claimable expenses to make trying to fiddle them even worth the risk.

Not that I ever would try defrauding I hasten to add.

Though I suspect that using the unused time on the car park ticket someone has just handed you counts as defrauding.

Although strictly speaking, it was prison that caused Ernest Saunders' Alzheimers - hence his rapid recovery on his release!

I think Nick Leeson did genuinely have cancer of the colon. I am not sure he was ever truly remorseful for the immense harm he did.

Ive noticed that major bank dealer defrauders, Leeson, the French guy and the one on trial in London at the moment always blame the bank they worked for for their fraud because they claim it had lax control systems. The idea that, whether the controls are lax or not, they were the ones responsible for deciding to deal and run accounts that they knew they were not allowed to do dosn't seem to occur to them.

One of the papers commented today that Moran had a reputation when she was an MP for very obviously enjoying living high on the hog and that there had been comment on how high her expenses were.

One does wonder how she managed to get away with a claim for new carpets and fitting costs for three bedrooms – while her then second hoe was a one-bedroom flat. Of course, she's been caught out now but cannot legally be found guilty because psychiatrists have said that her condition prevented her from defending herself in court. So what exactly was the point of a legal case?

Absent I think it has to come to court so that a judge can decide her fitness or otherwise to stand trial. I don't think the Crown Prosecution Service can make that decision.
I don't understand why she can't be tried in her absence though, since a barrister would be putting her case.
I heard her on the radio full of righteous indignation, it had all been made up and was incredibly stressful for her family. Clearly bonkers, but that doesn't alter the fact that she committed fraud and should be tried in a court of law IMHO.

I agree with Greatnan, I think Nick Leeson developed cancer while he was in prison, and I think he served most of hos six -year term.