Former MP Jared O’Mara loses a Court of Appeal bid to challenge his four-year prison sentence

In February, the 41-year-old was convicted of six counts of fraud after trying to claim about £52,000 of taxpayers’ money for constituency work that was never done and jobs that did not exist.

O’Mara, who represented Sheffield Hallam from 2017 to 2019, first as a Labour MP and then as an independent, went on trial at Leeds Crown Court for submitting “dishonest” invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) between June and August 2019.

He was accused of making fraudulent expenses claims to fund an “extensive” cocaine habit, with a judge later saying it had been “cynical, deliberate and dishonest”.

O’Mara sought permission to appeal his sentence, but Mrs Justice Lambert, sitting with Lord Justice Holroyde and Mr Justice Jeremy Baker, rejected his case at a short hearing in London on Tuesday.