Expense row MP's next hearing will be at Crown Court
FORMER Calderdale councillor David Chaytor was among three Labour MPs and a Conservative peer who told a judge they will use a 320-year-old law to argue they should not be prosecuted over the expenses scandal.
Mr Chaytor, of Lumbutts, Todmorden, Elliot Morley and Jim Devine, along with Conservative peer Lord Hanningfield, will insist that their case should not be tried by a jury and instead dealt with by House of Commons authorities.
The four men, who were charged last month, appeared before Westminster Magistrates' Court last week. All four said they would plead not guilty to fiddling claims for allowances.
They asked to be excused from standing in the secure glass dock at the back of the court but their request was refused.
Barrister Julian Knowles, for the MPs, told the court they would argue they were protected by Parliamentary privilege, covered in the 1689 Bill of Rights.
District Judge Timothy Workman said the case was so serious that it should be heard at a higher court and released the four defendants on bail to appear at Southwark Crown Court on March 30.
If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of seven years in prison.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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