Former Labour MPs take expenses trial challenge to Supreme Court

Three former Labour MPs facing criminal trials over expenses fiddling allegations go to the Supreme Court today to argue that the criminal courts do not have jurisdiction to hear their cases.

David Chaytor, Elliot Morley and Jim Devine, who deny theft by false accounting, claim that any investigation into their expenses claims and the imposition of any sanctions "should lie within the hands of Parliament".

They say this is not an attempt to "take them above the law", but to ensure they are adjudicated by the "correct law and the correct body".

The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, heading a panel of three Court of Appeal judges, earlier this year upheld a ruling by a judge at Southwark Crown Court in central London that they were not protected.

Lord Judge said: "It can confidently be stated that parliamentary privilege or immunity from criminal prosecution has never, ever attached to ordinary criminal activities by Members of Parliament."

He added: "If the allegations are proved, and we emphasise, if they are proved, then those against whom they are proved will have committed ordinary crimes."

Former Bury North MP Chaytor, 61, of Todmorden, West Yorkshire; ex-Scunthorpe MP Morley, 58, of Winterton, north Lincolnshire; and Devine, 57, of Bathgate, West Lothian, formerly MP for Livingston, are all on unconditional bail and due to face separate trials at Southwark Crown Court.