Four face trial after expenses appeal defeat

The Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, and two other judges sitting in London, rejected argument by David Chaytor, from Todmorden, Elliot Morley, from Scunthorpe, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield, that they were protected from prosecution by parliamentary privilege.

It is open to the four, who deny theft by false accounting, to seek to take their cases to the Supreme Court – the highest in the land – for a further challenge.

At the centre of the appeal was a submission that any investigation into their expenses claims and the imposition of any sanctions "should lie within the hands of Parliament".

The judges were told at a hearing in June that the challenge was not an attempt to "take them above the law", but to ensure they were adjudicated by the "correct law and the correct body".

It was said by the defendants that submitting an expenses form was part of the proceedings of Parliament, and therefore protected by parliamentary privilege.

Yesterday's decision by Lord Judge, Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger and Sir Anthony May upheld an earlier ruling by a judge at Southwark Crown Court in central London that they were not protected by parliamentary privilege.

In a judgment citing cases from as far back at 1629, Lord Judge said: "It can confidently be stated that parliamentary privilege or immunity from criminal prosecution has never, ever attached to ordinary criminal activities by Members of Parliament."

The court could not "discern from principle or authority that privilege or immunity in relation to such conduct may arise merely because the allegations are based on activities which have taken place 'within the walls' of Parliament".

Lord Judge said: "The stark reality is that the defendants are alleged to have taken advantage of the allowances scheme designed to enable them to perform their important public duties as Members of Parliament to commit crimes of dishonesty to which parliamentary immunity or privilege does not, has never, and, we believe, never would attach.

"If the allegations are proved, and we emphasise, if they are proved, then those against whom they are proved will have committed ordinary crimes.

"Even stretching language to its limits, we are unable to envisage how dishonest claims by Members of Parliament for their expenses or allowances begin to involve the legislative or core functions of the relevant House, or the proper performance of their important public duties.

"In our judgment, no question of privilege arises, and the ordinary process of the criminal justice system should take its normal course, unaffected by any groundless anxiety that they might constitute an infringement of the principles of parliamentary privilege."

Former Bury North MP Chaytor, 60, ex-Scunthorpe MP Morley, 58, of Winterton, north Lincolnshire; Devine, 57, of Bathgate, West Lothian, formerly MP for Livingston; and former Essex County Council leader Lord Hanningfield, who is also known as Paul White, 69, of West

Hanningfield, near Chelmsford, Essex, are all on unconditional bail and are due to stand separate trials at Southwark Crown Court in London.