A former Labour MP who submitted fake expenses to fund a cocaine habit while in office has been convicted of fraud.

Jared O’Mara, who represented Sheffield Hallam from 2017 to 2019, was on trial at Leeds Crown Court for submitting false invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) to make money for himself and two of his friends.

He was accused of trying to claim up to £30,000 in taxpayers’ money to fund an “extravagant lifestyle – drink, cigarettes and, above all, cocaine”.

O’Mara, 41, was in “poor mental health” at the time and abusing the class A drug in “prodigious quantities”, the court heard.

On Wednesday he was found guilty at trial of six counts of fraud and cleared of two.

Co-defendant Gareth Arnold was found guilty of three out of six fraud charges, and a third defendant, John Woodliff, was found not guilty of one offence of fraud.

O’Mara and Arnold will be sentenced at the same court on Thursday.

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