A FORMER MEP serving Hampshire who fiddled nearly £500,000 in expenses has been jailed for four years.

Peter Skinner claimed thousands of pounds for support staff which actually funded jewellery, restaurants and hotel stays whilst Labour MEP for the South East.

The 56-year-old was told he had abused public trust as he was sentenced at Southwark Crown Court today.

He made fraudulent payments of £10,000 a month to his wife between 2007 and 2009 which allowed him to claim secretarial or parliamentary assistance allowance, his trial heard.

Skinner, MEP from 1999 to 2014, also fabricated a letter claiming his father was working for him to justify payments of £5,000 every three months.

The fraud totalled £480,000.

Sentencing, Mrs Justice Maura McGowan said: "You were trusted by the public and you abused that trust.

"You have not only damaged public trust in individual parliamentarians but also in the democratic institution itself.

"This was a breach of trust of the worst kind - this was a sustained pattern of stealing from the taxpayer."

A jury last month found him guilty of counts of making a false instrument, fraud and false accounting. He was cleared of one count of making a false instrument in relation to a form submitted to the European Parliament in 2006.