I've a lot of sympathy for this guy. OK, he was convicted of misappropriation of funds, or something similar, but he gained no fiscal advantage.
He was decorating his office and rather than claim expenses one way, he claimed them another. He could have legitimately claimed those expenses, but he went the wrong way about it.
I see he intends standing for re-election. I wish him the best of luck.
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Who forges an invoice after the expenses scandal.
What a twit.
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It does seem to be more of an oversight than anything from what I've read. All to do with being unable to claim the whole amount from one expense budget, although I'm not sure why he didn't just ask for two invoices.
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>> It does seem to be more of an oversight than anything from what I've read.
>> All to do with being unable to claim the whole amount from one expense budget,
>> although I'm not sure why he didn't just ask for two invoices.
You don't forge invoices or describe landscape pictures as furniture by 'oversight':
www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/christopher-davies-sentencing-remarks-1.pdf
It seems this case the convict's party, at least at local level, are standing by him and he will be Tory candidate in the upcoming by-election.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 22 Jun 19 at 07:25
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I guess he'll find out whether his constituents think it an oversight or fraud soon enough.
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Corruption end of. Hope his party get a kicking into oblivion, hopefully not to the advantage of some Brexit party person.
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>> I've a lot of sympathy for this guy. OK, he was convicted of misappropriation of
>> funds, or something similar, but he gained no fiscal advantage.
>> He was decorating his office and rather than claim expenses one way, he claimed them
>> another. He could have legitimately claimed those expenses, but he went the wrong way about
>> it.
The offence of which he was convicted was was not misappropriation. He was charged under the Parliamentary Standards Act, one of the measures put in place after the expenses scandal. It may have been an accounting device to split the money between budgets or an attempt to conceal how the money, albeit a legitimate spend, was used. Or both of those things.
If it had been simply an accounting device I suspect there were means to divide the bill between different accounting codes. We could certainly do that in the Quango, for example to apportion an expense between the main body and it's Scottish Committee.
The amount spent is broadly equal to what a constituent would have earned for 100 hours at the then prevailing minimum wage.
He could have got some landscape pictures for a tenth of that.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 22 Jun 19 at 10:34
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>>or an attempt to conceal how the money, albeit a legitimate spend, was used.
No, it wasn't that. As far as I understand he was completely clear in both places how the money was used.
He couldn't charge them to budget #1 because there wasn't enough money available. He could have charged them to budget #2 but that would have left he balance in budget #1 unused and presumably he wanted to use it all.
Totally legitimate and perfectly within procedure *IF* he hadn't forged the documents he sued to do it.
If he'd gone back to the supplier and asked for two invoices, if he had posted the full invoices to both budgets and showed each as partial payment, or if he had asked for amendments he would have been totally legal.
Why he didn't do that, I don't know. Clearly he felt the legitimate route wasn't going to work for some reason. Perhaps there was a single purchase limit, perhaps at £500 it needs two signatures, who knows. But nobody forges invoices for the hell of it when they can simply ask for legitimate ones. So I suspect that what he was doing was legal, but perhaps against process or protocol, or perhaps against some verbal discussion he'd had.
If nothing else, he's a t***. Forging documents is dumb, Doing it when you don't need to is twice dumb, and doing it when you're in public office is beyond belief.
What it was not is a mistake. It was a deliberate action.
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A fool
But if the Brexit Party had stood aside for the Tories, like the Greens and Loony Welsh stood aside for the LibDems, there would not be one less no-deal supporter in Parliament.
However a very poor result for Labour. They no longer have any credibility at the ballot box until they bring in policies that don't cripple anyone in employment, or actually have a policy their mainstream supportors can support.
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Any more results like these and the Conservatives, Brexit Party and UKIP will be demanding proportional representation!
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>> However a very poor result for Labour. They no longer have any credibility at the
>> ballot box until they bring in policies that don't cripple anyone in employment, or actually
>> have a policy their mainstream supportors can support.
They just need a clear policy on Brexit. Or even be clear about anything would help
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Chris Davies forced out - Lygonos
