Lawmaker who expensed fine wine, car, jailed

LONDON (Reuters) - A former far-right British member of the European Parliament who cheated on his expense money to buy fine wine and a car was jailed on Wednesday for two years.

"This fraud was so blatant, I do not believe for one moment you were disadvantaged in understanding the system or that this fraud should be seen as falling into some grey area which you might not have fully comprehended," Judge Geoffrey Rivlin said in sentencing Tom Wise, 61, a former representative for the fringe UK Independence Party.

Wise, who represented the UKIP before becoming an independent, spent a year channeling some 40,000 pounds ($66,080) in taxpayers' cash into a bank account he secretly controlled.

He maintained a 3,000-pound "secretarial assistance allowance" he received every month was for his researcher, but paid her just 500 pounds while keeping the rest for himself, buying a car, expensive wines and paying off debts.

"It is no exaggeration to say that you had hardly got your feet beneath your desk as an MEP before you were planning to defraud the parliament to which you were elected and the people you were elected to serve," Rivlin said in remarks carried by Press Association.

Wise, from Leighton Buzzard, north of London, had denied false accounting but changed his plea on the third day of his three-week trial at London's Southwark Crown Court.

He was kicked out of the UKIP over the scandal and did not stand for re-election in June. The judge said in addition to being jailed, Wise would have to pay 30,000 pounds in costs.

The probe into Wise was unrelated to an expenses scandal which embarrassed politicians and damaged trust in Britain's parliament earlier this year. Taxpayers were shocked to learn that some lawmakers had claimed expenses ranging from porn films to moat cleaning.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; editing by Michael Roddy)