Ex-Sheffield MP's Chief of Staff submitted invoices he believed to be legitimate under O'Mara's 'direction'

The offences the defendants are alleged to have committed

30-year-old Gareth Arnold, of School Lane, Dronfield, is on trial at Leeds Crown Court alongside Jared O’Mara, with O’Mara accused of eight counts of fraud, and Arnold accused of six. A third defendant John Woodliff, 42, of Hesley Road, Shiregreen, is accused of pretending to work for O’Mara as a ‘Constituency Support Officer’ while fraudulently claiming a salary.

During the opening of the prosecution case on January 31, the jury was told that O’Mara, 41, of Walker Close, Grenoside, committed the alleged offences while he was serving as a MP for Sheffield Hallam and used the expenses system as ‘a source of income that was his to claim and use as he wished’ – with a mind to funding ‘an extensive cocaine habit’.

Invoices totalling approximately £30,000 were submitted to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority between June and August 2019, none of which were ever paid out. The allegedly fraudulent claims include four invoices totaling £20,000 for ‘Confident About Autism South Yorkshire’ (CAASY) – an autism support service that prosecutors allege does not exist.

The defence case

Following the conclusion of the prosecution case, O’Mara, who has appeared via video link throughout the trial, was afforded the opportunity to give evidence – either in person or remotely – on Tuesday, January 31, but declined.

Arnold opted to give evidence in his defence, and told the jury he became employed as O’Mara’s ‘Chief of Staff’ on June 1, 2019, but had offered his media and PR services ‘on retainer’ and ‘day rates’ – as detailed in invoices O’Mara told him submit to IPSA – between the beginning of 2019 and his appointment in the role.

Explaining how he came to be employed with O’Mara on a full-time basis, Arnold said he got in touch with O’Mara, who has cerebral palsy and autism, in ‘March or April’ 2019 after reading a press report 'along the lines of he's fired all of his staff'.

“I rang him and [he] said he'd basically fired all of his staff overnight,” Arnold said, adding: “Some of them elected to leave instead of being pushed.”

Arnold continued: “Because he was an independent [MP] he was outside of what you might call the party machinery...he had nobody managing his media.”

This put O'Mara in a 'vulnerable' position, Arnold suggested, adding: “No-one could fend off attacks against him. He has autism...you need to be quite patient with someone who has autism. I don't think journalists were very patient.

“As an MP you're always going to get journalists saying negative stuff about you, but in a situation where he was quite vulnerable, he had got rid of all his staff...I think the press were a bit heavy-handed with him but he also didn't have any support in place.”

Arnold said that invoices had previously been submitted to IPSA by O’Mara’s then office manager. After taking on the role of ‘Chief of Staff,’ O’Mara made him aware that were ‘outstanding’ invoices for which he needed to be reimbursed and said he believed there to be a ‘brief window’ of time for them to be submitted.

Invoices

“I thought, well...if his Parliamentary career isn't going well we can at least get these invoices in,” Arnold told the jury.

Among the Arnold helped O’Mara to submit were ones for CAASY. Arnold said O’Mara had told him some of the ‘original’ invoices for CAASY – which he believed to be ‘legitimate’ – had been misplaced, and said he created invoices with ‘placeholder data’ in the interim ‘under the direction’ of O’Mara. He said he believed he would ‘get the original invoices’ at some point, and was aware that O’Mara had a ‘back room full of papers,’ and was under the impression they could be in there.

“He [O'Mara] told me it was a company belonging to Mr Woodliff [the third defendant] and Mr Woodliff was particularly sensitive about personal information,” Arnold said. He told the jury that these concerns about data came after O’Mara had previous invoices submitted on his behalf ‘leaked’ to the press, leading to negative press coverage and the then Sheffield MP being labelled the ‘Uber king’ in reference to the number of Uber taxi rides he claimed for.

Arnold said he did not know Woodliff particularly well, but had previously spoken to him concerning one of his daughters having Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and believed him to be involved with ‘caring for people’ with ASD. He also told the jury he was aware of a disagreement O’Mara and Woodliff had previously had concerning invoices.

When asked if anything concerning the CAASY invoices gave him cause for concern, Arnold said cited O’Mara’s failure to produce the original invoices, and he began asking him for them every time he phoned him which he said was ‘every single day’.

I ‘didn’t want to end up in a situation where I’m in court’

Arnold subsequently contacted South Yorkshire Police, and said he was concerned his employer had been submitting ‘fraudulent’ invoices to the Government and believed him to be in the throes of a ‘mental health crisis,’ as part of which he believed him to have ‘outlandish’ and ‘irrational’ beliefs, some of which related to a 'shadowy Government cabal’.

He said he had taken that step because he ‘didn't want to end up in a situation where I'm in court’.

Arnold told the jury that his employment background included a House of Commons internship with Greg Mulholland when he was the MP for Leeds North West and the creation of a ‘marketing consultancy’ firm he co-created called Rackley Arnold Associates.

Arnold said he met O’Mara in 2016 while in the Frog and Parrot pub on Division Street through a mutual friend, and that the pair were both part of a group of people who met through ‘Sheffield’s music scene’ and would meet up to socialise on weekends.

He said that at the time they met O’Mara worked as a DJ and manager at Sheffield city centre nightclub, West Street Live. The pair became friends, Arnold said, after bonding over a shared interest in music and politics; adding that he had begun to see O’Mara ‘less frequently’ after his ‘shock’ win as Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam in the 2017 General Election, a role he held for over two years before stepping down in autumn 2019.

All three defendants deny the charges they face.

The trial continues.