Revealing messages about drugs and fraud sent between disgraced ex-Sheffield MP and his Chief of Staff

It took jurors just over a day to find fomer Sheffield Hallam MP, Jared O’Mara, guilty of six counts of fraud relating to fake expense claims totalling £24,000 to fund an ‘extensive’ cocaine habit, which were submitted to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority between June and August 2019, while O’Mara, aged 41, of Walker Close, Grenoside, was a serving MP.

The court was told how O’Mara submitted four claims to IPSA, asking to be reimbursed for services he had paid out for from a ‘fictitious’ organisation called ‘Confident about Autism South Yorkshire’. The sum requested by O’Mara was £19,400.

None of the invoices submitted to IPSA, the independent body which was set up following the MPs’ expenses scandal, were ever paid out.

O’Mara’s ‘Chief of Staff’ Gareth Arnold, aged 30, School Lane, Dronfield, was also found guilty of three counts of fraud, relating to the fraudulent claims submitted to Confident about Autism South Yorkshire.

Jurors acquitted O’Mara of two of the eight counts of fraud he was charged with, and Arnold was cleared of three of the six counts he faced.

A third defendant, John Woodliff, aged 42, of Hesley Road, Shiregreen, who was employed as O’Mara’s ‘Constituency Support Officer’ has been acquitted of the one count of fraud he was charged with.

During the course of the 17-day trial at Leeds Crown Court, the jury were told that Arnold officially started in his role as O’Mara’s Chief of Staff on June 1, 2019 and subsequently reported him to South Yorkshire Police for submitting ‘fake expense claims to the government’ just over a month later on July 2, 2019.

Messages sent by Arnold on WhatsApp, which were sent to the jury in evidence, also revealed that O’Mara, who has autism and cerebral palsy, owed a drug dealer a debt of a ‘few’ thousand pounds in the months before the fraudulent invoices were submitted.

Sent from Arnold to a contact on April 24, 2019, the message reads: “He’s a few K in debt with a drug dealer.”

Arnold’s contact responded: “That is a very dangerous game, that. He wants to be careful no bad lads come for him. He’s on 80k a year FFS.”

The WhatsApp message is just one of dozens shown to the jury, which were sent to, and from, the phones of Arnold and O’Mara between February and August 2019.

WhatsApp messages sent by Arnold and O’Mara between February and June 2019:

- O’Mara to Arnold at 4.55pm on 15/02/19: “You wanna earn some easy money?? Like get a lump sum by August? I have a completely simple and very kosher way that involves bending the truth ever so slightly to both our benefits! I don’t know why more people don’t do it”

- Contact to Arnold at 10.40am on 16/02/19: “U been with Jared again?”

- Arnold to contact at 10.42am and 10.43am on 16/02/2019: “Yessir….Fręę drüngz”

- Arnold to O’Mara at 01.32am on 18/05/19: “Yes, cocaine. You’re in my phone as CKDYSTOPIA, like a Soviet spyword.”

- Arnold to contact at 12.13pm, and then 12.23pm, on 02/06/19: “I just smashed loads of coke till 3. Was deec...God no. With the bf and local MP.”

- O’Mara to Arnold at 10.11pm on 16/06/19: “Also, there might be an awesome way to get you, the staff and me constructive dismissal and victimisation payments AND me stay as an MP and then rehire you an we all keep getting paid and they have to keep us on the books even if I lose an election. Not sh**ing you! Looks like we’re all in fact employed by IPSA and it’s nothing to do with my status as MP.”

- O’Mara to Arnold at 2.35am on 17/06/19: “I’m earning you some money by the way. Lots of it. Just found something out!”

- Arnold to O’Mara at 4.23pm on 25/06/19: “yeah I’ve just reprinted them and put the post code from Penistone Road Mcdonalds”

- O’Mara to Arnold at 9.04pm on 26/06/19: “Life or death stuff! Call me as soon as you get this! Remove the postcode entirely from the Autism invoices so it doesn’t have one before you submit it and then call me so I can tell you why and what’s just happened!”

- Arnold to contact at 10.12pm on 26/06/19:“I’ve just been sorting out an office move and falling into the trap of giant lines for breakfast for nearly 3 weeks now”

- O’Mara to Arnold at 5.32pm on 27/06/19: “Nailed my response to IPSA. Made it about disability and reasonable adjustments and told them I’m going to contact Mr Speaker and to please pay the autism money immediately or I’ll have to add that to my list. Also added in words like service, serve, parliamentary duties, obstructions and the like just in case anyone makes the connection.”

WhatsApp messages sent between Arnold and O’Mara between July and August 2019 – after Arnold reported O’Mara to the police:

- O’Mara to Arnold at 5.40pm on 15/07/19: “Ask yourself why somebody like me tries to change their mood with legal and illegal substances? Think about it”

- Arnold to O’Mara at 1.04pm on 16/07/19: “I will keep everything running but I really need for you to seek sobriety by professional methods”

- Arnold to O’Mara at 11.45am on 17/07/19: “well I can only apologise – over the years I‘ve seen your mental health deteriorate and your drug abuse spiral into something quite strange. Definitely no longer the great, motivated person I once knew. And I think you know that too. I just want you to get clean and sober, so you can fight the good fight”

- O’Mara to Arnold at 8.33pm at 23/07/19: “I need to concentrate on taking my mind off everything. It feels so much better here than being at home. It’ll be three days clean in a couple of hours and that’s the longest I’ve gone in longer than I can remember”

- Arnold to O’Mara at 7.04pm on 15/08/19: “Jared, I have tried but you got s***faced before a TV interview and then harass a young female member of staff. These actions aren’t about you being bullied they are about you not being or not acting responsible. I have dealt with a lot of BS so far but just one for second recognise that you need to be accountable for your actions. It’s you who still never came into the office. It’s you who does cocaine instead of going to Parliament. It’s you who does not give one iota about the constituents. I have really really tried and worked hard, that’s why the staff respect me and confide in me. My fear is that if I leave, everyone else goes and you’ll once again suspend casework while there’s thousands of people in Sheffield who need representation. Its not us vs you. It’s about you doing your f***ing job.”

- O’Mara to contact at 9.55pm on 15/08/19: “Order 2 bags of goose. I have the hundred quid. I have 150 in fact”

O’Mara and Arnold are now due to be sentenced for the fraud offences they have been convicted of at Leeds Crown Court on Thursday, February 9, 2023.