A FORMER MP who tried to use his ailing Rossendale mother as a cover for fiddling his expenses is beginning an 18-month jail sentence.

Ex-Ramsbottom MP David Chaytor was today said to be a ‘broken man’.

He became the first politician to be convicted over the expenses scandal which rocked Westminster.

His lawyer James Sturman, QC, said his client had paid a 'quite devastating price'.

Chaytor, 61, falsely claimed £5,425 between September 2007 and January 2008 for renting a cottage in Castle Street, Summerseat, Southwark Crown Court was told.

But a police investigation showed the property, Delph Cottage, belonged to his mother, Olive Trickett.

Mrs Trickett had lived in the cottage for 40 years but eventually moved to Holme Manor care home, in Townsend Fold, Rawtenstall, in May 2007 when she developed dementia. She died aged 81 in May 2009.

Her family were descendants of footwear magnate Sir Henry Trickett, who bequeathed land which became Trickett’s Memorial Ground in Waterfoot.

Ryan Godwin, who owns Holme Manor, said he could not comment on Mrs Trickett’s affairs while she was at the home.

But he added: “Mr Chaytor’s mother lived in Holme Manor and this has been well-documented.

"She was a very dear lady and we looked after her well.”

Chaytor, of Lumbutts, Todmorden, submitted bogus invoices totalling £22,650 for IT services and renting homes in London and his Bury North constituency, which includes Ramsbottom.

Former Burnley MP Peter Pike, who has known him for a number of years, said he was shocked.

Mr Pike said: “I still think it is incredible that he could have done this because it is just not within his normal character.

“He was a Christian man and a very genuine person.

"Until I heard he had pleaded guilty I was confident that there had been some error,” he added.

Mr Pike said he had backed calls, when he was in the House of Commons, for Parliament to acquire London’s former City Hall, on the banks of the River Thames, to provide free accommodation for MPs.

Chaytor pleaded guilty in December to three false accounting charges and nows faces a hefty legal bill for the case.

Prosecutor Peter Wright QC said the London and Summerseat homes were owned by himself and his mother respectively.

He made the false claims in order to ‘siphon off’ public money to which he was not entitled, the court heard.

But he has now repaid £19,237, more than the £18,350 he received from the House of Commons fees office based on his fraudulent claims.

Chaytor submitted claims totalling £15,275 and was paid £12,925 for renting Flat 152 Hide Tower in Regency Street, Westminster, central London.

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 used the first and two middle names of his daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Rastrick, on a bogus shorthold tenancy agreement submitted to the Parliamentary authorities.

Under the tenancy agreement for the Summerseat home, Mrs Trickett's address was listed as Holme Manor, Rawtenstall.

But there was no indication that this was a nursing home.

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 had not billed the former MP for the work.

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.

James Sturman, QC, defending, said Chaytor was a ‘broken man’ who had already paid a ‘quite devastating price’ for his errors.

He added: "There is nothing left that is a spark in him at all, except when he talks of his grandchild born before Christmas.

“He accepts he has brought shame on himself, he has brought shame on his family and he has brought shame on Parliament.”

The former MP was tonight taken to Wandsworth Prison in south-west London to spend his first night in custody Current MP David Nuttall said: "My constituents in Bury North will be glad this matter is now over and justice has been done, although many will wonder why Mr Chaytor continued to protest his innocence right up to just before the scheduled start of his trial.”