Former Labour MP David Chaytor was jailed for 18 months in Britain today for making false parliamentary expenses claims.
Chaytor (61) became the first politician to be convicted and sentenced over the expenses scandal which has rocked Westminster.
He submitted bogus invoices to support claims totalling £22,650 for IT services and renting homes in London and his Bury North constituency.
But the properties were owned by him and his mother, and he did not pay out any of his own money, Southwark Crown Court in London heard.
Chaytor, of Lumbutts, Todmorden, West Yorkshire, pleaded guilty last month to three counts of false accounting between November 2005 and January 2008.
The former MP is now facing a large legal bill for both his defence and thecosts of bringing the prosecution against him.
Chaytor submitted claims totalling £15,275 and was paid £12,925 for renting a flat in Hide Tower in Regency Street, Westminster. But it turned out that he and his wife had bought the property in 1999, two years after he was first elected to Parliament, and paid off the mortgage on it in 2003.
He also falsely claimed £5,425 between September 2007 and January 2008 for renting a cottage in Castle Street in Summerseat, near Bury, Lancashire.
A police investigation later revealed that this house was owned by his elderly mother, Olive Trickett.
The final charge related to a £1,950 claim made by Chaytor for IT support services provided in May 2006 by a freelance computer programmer called Paul France who volunteered at his office.
This money was never paid to him because he had already exceeded his allowance for this kind of expense, the court was told.
It came as “something of a surprise” to Mr France when he learned of the claim because he had not billed the former MP for the work, the court heard.
Sentencing Chaytor, Mr Justice Saunders said the Parliamentary expenses scandal has “shaken public confidence in the legislature and angered the public”.
He said: “These false claims were made in breach of the high degree of trust placed in MPs to only make legitimate claims.
“These offences have wider and more important consequences than is to be found in other breach of trust cases.
Looking gaunt and wearing a charcoal suit with a grey shirt and a black tie with white polka dots, grey-haired Chaytor stood calmly in the dock and made no reaction as he was sentenced.
Court sources said the former MP would be taken to Wandsworth Prison in south-west London to spend his first night in custody.