Dear All
Ex Labour MP Jim Devine has been released from prison.
And he only served a quarter of his sentence.
Devine was the former Labour MP for Livingston and then came the expenses scandal.
And he was staked out like a goat to be sacrificed for the public.
In all, four Labour MPs were given up by the House of Commons, David Chaytor, Elliot Morley, Eric Illsley and Devine.
A couple of Tory Peers, Lord Warwick and Lord Hanningfield also copped their wack.
Devine was jailed for 16 months in March after being branded a liar by his trial judge.
From there, it was a hop, step and a jump into a nice cosy cell in HMP Longpoke or Club Fed.
He spent four months behind bars for submitting false invoices totalling £8,385 between 2008 and 2009.
Devine, 58, was freed under the home detention curfew scheme.
That means prisoners who pose a low risk to be tagged and released early after serving at least a quarter of their sentence.
Considering his current situation, he might was well have stayed there, his career is ruined, his job prospects are zero and being tucked up saves on the bills.
On the down side; movement is restricted, so no parachuting, gliding or surfing is on offer.
Devine’s defence at his Southwark Crown Court trial was that he was acting on advice given with a "nod and a wink" by a fellow MP in a House of Commons bar.
But the MP who allegedly gave the advice said he did not.
As such his defence was rejected by the jury and the trial judge Mr Justice Saunders.
Saunders was blunt when he said that Devine had been "lying in significant parts of the evidence he gave".
Devine "set about defrauding the public purse in a calculated and deliberate way", the judge said.
Adding:
"Mr Devine made his false claims at a time when he well knew the damage that was being caused to Parliament by the expenses scandal, but he carried on regardless."
As well as the ‘MP told me to do it and ran away’ alibi, he also tried to stick the blame on his former office manager, Marion Kinley.
Kinley was to later to take Devine to an employment tribunal and win damages.
A Labour Party spokesman said:
"Jim Devine was excluded from the Labour Party some time ago and is no longer a member."
This is a common practice in the Labour Party and generally in political parties, they drop people when they become too much of a political liability.
Now, he is free, he can look forward to a grim and bleak future as he is now unemployable.
Jim Devine had it all, a good salary, a decent career and interesting work.
And he f*cked it all up by being greedy!
In public office, you have to play it straight, all the way down the line.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
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