‘Industrial scale’ benefit cheat fails to quit as MEP

12:43pm Thursday 20th September 2007

An MEP who was jailed for nine months for falsely claiming benefits of more than £65,000 has been widely criticised by his contemporaries for failing to resign.

Former UK Independence Party MEP Ashley Mote, 71, who represents the south-east including Surrey, was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court on September 4.

He will keep his job because automatic disqualification from his seat only comes with a sentence of 12 months or longer.

He had wrongly claimed income support and benefits totalling £65,506 between February 1996 and September 2002, after failing to inform the benefits office he was working.

Mote was elected as an MEP in 2004 as a member of UKIP, but the party soon threw him out when they discovered the charges against him.

MEP Daniel Hannan, whose constituency is in Bookham, said: "If he had a shred of decency he would have resigned. This is not a petty case of keeping quiet about additional benefits. This was on an industrial scale."

Phillip Hammond, MP for Runnymede and Weybridge, said: "I think someone convicted of a serious criminal offence can't remain in a position as a representative and a law-maker."

A spokesman for Mr Mote decline to comment, but said Mr Mote was considering an appeal on his sentence.