Disgraced MP Fiona Onasanya has been released from jail after earning almost £6,000 of taxpayers’ money behind bars.

The Peterborough MP was driven at speed out of HMP Bronzefield in Ashford, Surrey, this morning after spending a month of her three-month jail term locked up.

She has refused to quit Parliament despite being jailed for perverting the course of justice and expelled by Labour .

The MP – who was tipped as a rising star, and allies claimed saw herself as a future leader – was jailed for lying to avoid a speeding charge. She is appealing her conviction.

Onasanya, 35, sat in the back of a white Sodexo-branded Vauxhall with the closest window to her covered by a hi-vis jacket as it drove past photographers this morning.

During the time she spent in jail the former solicitor refused to stand down – which meant Parliament was forced to pay her around £5,700 of her £77,379-a-year MP’s salary.

Meanwhile her lower-paid staff were forced to run her office in Peterborough without her.

Yet the MP insisted she was innocent, comparing herself to Jesus and Moses in a leaked messaged to MPs when she was convicted in December.

She wrote: "I am in good Biblical company along with Joseph, Moses, Daniel and his three Hebrew friends who were each found guilty by the courts of their day."

Now the Independent MP could become the first to vote in the House of Commons wearing an electronic tag, as the Mirror revealed earlier this month.

Under Parliamentary rules, Onasanya had to receive a jail sentence of at least 12 months to be automatically removed as an MP.

However, if she loses her appeal – for which a date isn’t yet set – she could be removed from Parliament through a "recall petition."

Under this mechanism, she would face a by-election if a petition is signed by more than 10% of the electorate in the constituency.

Labour is understood to be mounting preparations for a by-election.

Protesters outside her office earlier this month declared her a "liar".

Onasanya was jailed for three months at the Old Bailey on January 29 after being convicted of perverting the course of justice by lying to avoid a speeding charge.

The MP with a once-promising career is continuing in her role, sitting as an Independent politician despite calls for her resignation.

Onasanya, a solicitor by profession, is expected to have to obey strict conditions as part of her early release.

It came after the Attorney General’s Office ruled that her sentence was not unduly lenient following a complaint being lodged.

Jurors at the Old Bailey were told that Onasanya colluded with her brother Festus after her car was clocked speeding at 41mph in a 30mph zone in the village of Thorney, near Peterborough, in July 2017.

She was sent a Notice of Intended Prosecution to fill out, but it was sent back naming the guilty driver as Aleks Antipow, an acquaintance of her brother, who was away visiting his parents in Russia.

Festus Onasanya was sentenced to 10 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to three counts of perverting the course of justice over speeding, including over the July 24 incident.

Read More

Latest UK politics news

Source: Read Full Article