Moran weeps as she faces court over MP expenses

Former Labour MP Margaret Moran wept in the dock today as she was committed to stand trial on charges that she fiddled £80,000 on her parliamentary expenses.

Moran, 56, the former MP for Luton South, is accused of the largest fraud in the parliamentary expenses scandal.

Barely 200 yards from the Commons, Moran cried through the three-minute hearing at City of Westminster magistrates' court.

She faces 21 charges, 15 of false accounting and six of using a false instrument. She was not required to enter a plea today.

Among the allegations is one that she falsely claimed £22,500 to treat dry rot in a home in Southampton more than 100 miles from her constituency.

The police gave the Crown Prosecution Service a file on Moran's case as long ago as December last year but the charges have only now been brought because of ill health.

Louis Mably, prosecuting, asked for the case to be sent to the crown court because of the "nature of the charges, their complexity and the value of the sums involved".

Moran was remanded on bail to appear at Southwark crown court on October 28.