Ex-Labour MP David Chaytor calls for jail sentence to be cut

Disgraced former Labour MP David Chaytor today claimed his prison sentence should be cut from 18 to 12 months.

But he now accepts he must remain in jail and has abandoned a previous claim that he should only have received a suspended sentence.

Chaytor, 61, launched his appeal today against his sentence, imposed in January after he pleaded guilty to fiddling his parliamentary expenses.

He forged tenancy documents and invoices to falsely claim more than £22,000 of taxpayers' money for rent and IT work from the Commons authorities.

His barrister James Sturman QC told the Appeal Court that the former Bury North MP accepted he had acted dishonestly.

But Mr Sturman insisted: "It was not a stunt to enrich himself by making money he was not entitled to. It was because of his changing and fluctuating circumstances."

Chaytor, of Todmorden, West Yorkshire, rented homes in London and in his Lancashire constituency but spent a great deal of time at the home of his mother who suffered from dementia.

Mr Sturman argues that Chaytor would have been entitled to legitimate claims for expenses "if he had only explained his difficult domestic situation" to the authorities.

He also claimed that Chaytor had deserved a greater discount on his sentence as he had pleaded guilty at an earlier stage.

He had had to wait for the Supreme Court to rule on whether he and other ex-MPs facing similar charges could claim parliamentary privilege and for further legal argument on the question of whether media scrutiny had jeopardised a fair trial.

But the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, sitting with Mr Justices Henriques and Foskett, said Chaytor could have indicated far earlier that he was prepared to plead guilty on the facts of the case.

The judges will announce their decision tomorrow morning.