Former British Environment Minister Eliot Morley was
sent directly to prison Friday after being sentenced to 16 months for expenses fraud.
Morley, a Labor member of Parliament, served as environment minister for nine years under Prime Minister Tony Blair. He is the highest-ranking politician to be imprisoned so far in the expenses scandal.
During the 2-hour hearing in Southwark Crown Court in London, Morley occasionally teared up, The Independent reported. He left the court in a prison van.
Morley pleaded guilty to defrauding the government of about $50,000 by continuing to receive reimbursement for mortgage interest paid on a second home in his constituency in Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, after the mortgage was paid off. His lawyer, Jim Sturman,called it "an absolutely ridiculous and inexplicable course of criminal conduct."
Sturman read a tribute to Morley by the Independent's environmental writer. Morley was
fired as environment minister in 2006 during a dispute about climate change.
Morley cried as Sturman read Michael McCarthy's words: "This man spent all his long ministerial career defending the environment, and lost his job by trying too hard to save it.
Say what you like. Cast what stones you want. This is the truth."