Former MP Jared O’Mara owed thousands to drug dealer, court hears

Former Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam accused of making fraudulent expenses claims of nearly £30,000

A former Labour MP accused of expenses fraud was thousands of pounds in debt to a drug dealer and regularly took up to five grams of cocaine a day, a court has heard.

Jared O’Mara also once drank a litre of vodka before a television interview with BBC Look North and believed “a shadowy government cabal” was out to get him, his former chief of staff Gareth Arnold said in messages and police interviews read to jurors at Leeds crown court.