THE POLICE have dropped their investigation into allegations that Lord Hanningfield claimed fraudulent expenses during his leadership of Essex County Council.
The peer was jailed for nine months last May at Chelmsford Crown Court after being found guilty of fiddling his parliamentary receipts.
He served nine weeks of his sentence and was arrested by Essex Police at his home in West Hanningfield on the suspicion he misused the council corporate credit card during his time at County Hall, just days after being released from prison.
Shortly after his trial, the Chronicle revealed that the Tory politician racked up nearly £20,000 in expenses in his final year as leader of the council, which he ran for ten years until being forced to step down in February 2010 to fight the fraud charges.
But after a 14 month-long investigation, the City of London police, which took over the case from the Essex force, revealed there was insufficient evidence to charge the 72-year-old with fiddling his council expenses.
"Following a full review of the evidence obtained from this investigation, and consultation with the CPS, a decision has been made to take no further action regarding these allegations, as there is insufficient evidence to justify any criminal charges in this case," a police spokesman said.
"The police investigation into this matter is now closed."
Lord Hanningfield has now called for an independent inquiry into Essex County Council's decision to report him to police and questioned the motivations of senior officials dealing with the matter.
"I am relieved that this chapter has closed and that the police and CPS have confirmed I did nothing wrong," the former pig farmer said. "I now believe that the council must examine its actions including the activities and motivations of those senior officials who ran and continue to run the authority.
"I did nothing without their knowledge.
"I therefore ask that the leader of Essex County Council suspends these individuals whilst a thorough investigation of their activities and motivations is undertaken by an external individual.
"My heart sinks to think of the hundreds of thousands of pounds that the council has spent on this exercise, through the hiring of expensive lawyers and the time and energy that could have been spent on delivering services for the people of Essex."
His lawyer, Mark Spragg, added: "It immediately seemed to me to be politically motivated because all through the trial the many references to his council expenses were that they were all in order."
In a leaked memo, sent by the council's chief executive Joanna Killian to senior authority managers late Tuesday evening, she said the council acted on "planned and diligent" internal audits of Lord Hanningfield's corporate credit card use.
"This will inevitably put ECC back in the headlines and as senior leaders it's important that you ensure your teams have the background and the confidence to respond to comments from customers, suppliers or even family and friends should they arise as a result of this coverage," the memo stated.
A statement put out by the council's press office read: "We are glad that the police investigation into Lord Hanningfield's Essex County Council corporate credit card is over and we are now able to move on.
"He was obviously a large part of the authority for a number of years.
"But it is three years since he stepped down as leader and a lot has changed since then.
"We will now be making the information we have available to the public to view on the council's website."
These include, the memo seen by the Chronicle reveals, details of Lord Hanningfield's corporate credit card spending and internal audit reports relating to corporate credit cards and the use of the Essex County Council car.
And in a further twist, the MP who discovered the peer's expenses abuse at the House of Lords has called for an independent inquiry into why the charges relating to Essex County Council have been dropped.
Colchester MP Sir Bob Russell said the eight-day trial clearly showed that Lord Hanningfield used 'ECC1' – the council's chauffeur driven car – to ferry him from his Chelmsford home to Parliament.
He also praised current council boss Peter Martin for the decision to make the information of Lord Hanningfield's County Hall expenses available to the public.
