Jim Devine has been jailed for 16 months for falsely claiming over £8,000 of public money.

Jim Devine has been jailed for 16 months for falsely claiming over £8,000 of public money. 

The former MP for Livingston was sentenced today after being found guilty of false accounting last month.
Devine was convicted after a jury agreed with the prosecution that Devine showed "woeful inadequacy" in abiding with the principles excepted of members of parliament. 

Today he became the third former MP to be jailed in the wake of the expenses scandal when he was sentenced at the Old Bailey by Mr Justice Saunders.

The judge said: "Mr Devine set about defrauding the public purse in a calculated and deliberate way."

Devine was Labour MP for Livingston between 2005 and 2010 after being elected after the death of Robin Cook. He was barred from standing for the party in the 2010 election over his expenses. 

Today, the judge said cleaning and maintenance work claimed for by Devine was either not done at all or not paid for by Devine, saying invoices submitted for printing work were "entirely bogus".

Devine's claims in court that another MP told him that what he did was "accepted practice" were false, and he had been "lying in significant parts of the evidence that he gave", the judge added.

"These offences constituted a gross breach of trust which, along with others, had had the effect of causing serious damage to the reputation of Parliament.

"Mr Devine made his false claims at a time when he well knew the damage that was being caused to Parliament by the expenses scandal but he carried on regardless."

Last month, the 57-year-old was declared bankrupt at Livingston Sheriff Court after he failed to pay former office manager Marion Kinley £35,000 for unfair dismissal. 

During his trial, Devine had denied three accounts of false accounting, but was found guilty of two of these charges.

One refers to three invoices on Tom O'Donnell headed paper for £360, £360 and £2,160.

The other count says that between March 2009 and April 2009, Devine falsely claimed £5,505 for stationery from Armstrong Printing using two false invoices.

He was cleared of a third count, relating to two other invoices from Tom O'Donnell, both for £180.