A former Labour MP tried to claim up to £30,000 in taxpayers’ cash to fund a “significant cocaine habit”, prosecutors have said.
Jared O’Mara, 41, was in “poor mental health” at the time and abusing the class A drug in “prodigious quantities”, Leeds Crown Court heard.
A friend, charged alongside him, believed the politician was suffering a “severe psychotic episode” and feared a conspiracy against him.
It is claimed that O’Mara, who represented the Sheffield Hallam constituency between 2017 and 2019, submitted “dishonest” invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa).
Jurors were told he made four claims between June and August 2019 from a “fictitious” organisation called Confident About Autism SY.
They also heard he submitted two invoices from his “chief of staff”, Gareth Arnold, for media and PR work. Prosecutors say that work was never carried out.
O’Mara, who appeared in court by videolink on Monday, is also accused of submitting a false contract of employment for his friend John Woodliff, saying that Woodliff worked for him as a constituency support officer.
O’Mara is charged with eight counts of fraud by false representation.
Arnold is jointly charged with six of the offences, while Woodliff is jointly charged with one.
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Image: John Woodliff said he ‘knew it was dodgy’, the court was told
Setting out his argument, prosecutor James Bourne-Arton said Arnold and Woodliff were “old friends of Jared O’Mara and sadly were persuaded to go along with his dishonest claims”.
In the summer of 2019, however, Arnold contacted South Yorkshire Police after “reaching a point at which he was no longer willing to participate in the fraud”, the court heard.
In a phone call played to the jury, Arnold said: “It’s a bit of a tricky one, but yesterday I spoke to the 999 service and the mental health crisis team about my employer, who I believe is suffering a severe psychotic episode and has delusions of a conspiracy against him.
“I also believe he has been submitting fake expense claims to the government very recently.”
The allegedly fraudulent invoices included £19,400 for support from Confident About Autism SY, and £4,650 for Arnold.
Mr Bourne-Arton said Confident About Autism SY was an “invention of Jared O’Mara that he hoped to slip through as a legitimate claim, no doubt seeking to hide behind the fact that it related to his disability if ever challenged”.
There is no evidence that any training or consultancy was provided by Arnold, the prosecutor said, and “legitimate staff” working for O’Mara had never heard of him.
“(Ipsa) staff noted that the invoices, particularly those from Confident About Autism, are in different formats, have inconsistent references, and in one case was dated for a date after it was submitted for payment,” Mr Bourne-Arton said.
All of the invoices were either rejected or not processed – one of them rejected three times.
Image: O’Mara allegedly had a ‘significant cocaine habit’. Pic: Sheffield Hallam Labour Party
Arnold described an “undoubtedly sad state of affairs”, Mr Bourne-Arton said.
He told jurors: “O’Mara was plainly unable to cope with the office he held, was in poor mental health and was heavily addicted to cocaine that he was abusing in prodigious quantities.”
Financial investigations revealed O’Mara was “living to or beyond his means and in dire need of cash”, the court heard.
The prosecutor said: “The reason for that appears to have been that he was funding a significant cocaine habit of which both Gareth Arnold and John Woodliff were plainly aware.”
The three defendants were arrested following an investigation and Woodliff, who was a nightclub doorman when O’Mara was a nightclub manager, said “I knew it was dodgy”, jurors were told.
The court also heard that O’Mara emailed Ipsa in February 2020, falsely claiming the police investigation had been completed with no action taken, and saying he was entitled to be paid the two invoices relating to services supplied by Arnold.
O’Mara, of Walker Close, Sheffield; Arnold, of School Lane, Dronfield, Derbyshire; and Woodliff, of Hesley Road, Shiregreen, Sheffield, deny all charges.
Donald Trump has described crucial trade talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping as “amazing” – and says he will visit Beijing in April.
The leaders of the world’s two biggest economies met in South Korea as they tried to defuse growing tensions – with both countries imposing aggressive tariffs on exports since the president’s second term began.
Aboard Air Force One, Mr Trump confirmed tariffs on Chinese goods exported to the US will be reduced, which could prove much-needed relief to consumers.
It was also agreed that Beijing will work “hard” to stop fentanyl flowing into the US.
Semiconductor chips were another issue raised during their 100-minute meeting, but the president admitted certain issues weren’t discussed.
“On a scale of one to 10, the meeting with Xi was 12,” he told reporters en route back to the US.
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‘Their handshake was almost a bit awkward’
Xi a ‘tough negotiator’, says Trump
The talks conclude a whirlwind visit across Asia – with Mr Trump saying he was “too busy” to see Kim Jong Un.
However, the president said he would be willing to fly back to see the North Korean leader, with a view to discussing denuclearisation.
Mr Trump had predicted negotiations with his Chinese counterpart would last for three or four hours – but their meeting ended in less than two.
The pair shook hands before the summit, with the US president quipping: “He’s a tough negotiator – and that’s not good!”
It marks the first face-to-face meeting between both men since 2019 – back in Mr Trump’s first term.
Image: Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Pic: AP
There were signs that Beijing had extended an olive branch to Washington ahead of the talks, with confirmation China will start buying US soybeans again.
American farmers have been feeling the pinch since China stopped making purchases earlier this year – not least because the country was their biggest overseas market.
Chinese stocks reached a 10-year high early on Thursday as investors digested their meeting, with the yuan rallying to a one-year high against the US dollar.
Analysis: A fascinating power play
Sky News Asia correspondent Helen-Ann Smith – who is in Busan where the talks took place – said it was fascinating to see the power play between both world leaders.
She said: “Trump moved quickly to dominate the space – leaning in, doing all the talking, even responding very briefly to a few thrown questions.
“That didn’t draw so much as an eyebrow raise from his counterpart, who was totally inscrutable. Xi does not like or respond well to unscripted moments, Trump lives for them.”
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Will Trump really run for a third term?
On Truth Social, Mr Trump had described the summit as a gathering of the “G2” – a nod to America and China’s status as the world’s two biggest economies.
While en route to see President Xi, he also revealed that the US “Department of War” has now been ordered to start testing nuclear weapons for the first time since 1992.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the Sudanese city of Al Fashir by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in a two-day window after the paramilitary group captured the regional capital, analysts believe.
Sky News is not able to independently verify the claim by Yale Humanitarian Labs, as the city remains under a telecommunications blackout.
Stains and shapes resembling blood and corpses can be seen from space in satellite images analysed by the research lab.
Image: Al Fashir University. Pic: Airbus DS/2025
Image: Al Fashir University. Pic: Airbus DS/2025
Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale Humanitarian Labs, said: “In the past 48 hours since we’ve had [satellite] imagery over Al Fashir, we see a proliferation of objects that weren’t there before RSF took control of Al Fashir – they are approximately 1.3m to 2m long which is critical because in satellite imagery at very high resolution, that’s the average length of a human body lying vertical.”
Mini Minawi, the governor of North Darfur, said on X that 460 civilians have been killed in the last functioning hospital in the city.
The Sudan Doctors Network has also shared that the RSF “cold-bloodedly killed everyone they found inside Al Saudi Hospital, including patients, their companions, and anyone else present in the wards”.
World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it was “appalled and deeply shocked” by the reports.
Satellite images support the claims of a massacre at Al Saudi Hospital, according to Mr Raymond, who said YHL’s report detailed “a large pile of them [objects believed to be bodies] against a wall at one building at Saudi hospital. And we believe that’s consistent with reports that patients and staff were executed en masse”.
In a video message released on Wednesday, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo acknowledged “violations in Al Fashir” and claimed “an investigation committee should start to hold any soldier or officer accountable”.
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Army soldiers ‘fled key Sudan city’ before capture
Image: The Saudi Maternity Hospital in Al Fashir. Pic: Airbus DS /2025 via AP
The commander is known for committing atrocities in Darfur in the early 2000s as a Janjaweed militia leader, and the RSF has been accused of carrying out genocide in Darfur 20 years on.
Sources have told Sky News the RSF is holding doctors, journalists and politicians captive, demanding ransoms from some families to release their loved ones.
One video shows a man from Al Fashir with an armed man kneeling on the ground, telling his family to pay 15,000. The currency was not made clear.
In some cases, ransoms have been paid, but then more messages come demanding that more money be transferred to secure release.
Muammer Ibrahim, a journalist based in the city, is currently being held by the RSF, who initially shared videos of him crouched on the ground, surrounded by fighters, announcing his hometown had been captured under duress.
He is being held incommunicado as his family scrambles to negotiate his release. Muammer courageously covered the siege of Al Fashir for months, enduring starvation and shelling.
The Committee to Protect Journalists regional director Sara Qudah said the abduction of Muammar Ibrahim “is a grave and alarming reminder that journalists in Al Fashir are being targeted simply for telling the truth”.