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Another Labour MP in expenses probe
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Another Labour MP is under police investigation over his parliamentary expenses, it has been reported.
The Daily Telegraph said that the Metropolitan Police launched a criminal inquiry into Leyton and Wanstead MP Harry Cohen after he claimed around £70,000 for a second home while renting out his main residence.
The unconfirmed report comes on the eve of the first appearance in court of three Labour MPs and a Conservative peer charged with theft by false accounting in relation to their allowances.
The Metropolitan Police said at the time of their charging that "a small number of cases" relating to parliamentary expenses remained under consideration.
But Scotland Yard on Wednesday evening refused to say whether Mr Cohen was one of those under investigation or how many cases were still being looked at.
The Telegraph said the Met had approached Commons authorities over recent weeks asking for documentation relating to Mr Cohen's claims.
There was no immediate response on Wednesday to a request for comment from Mr Cohen.
Between 2004 and 2009, Mr Cohen registered a property in Colchester as his main home and claimed parliamentary expenses on a "second home" in his constituency. Commons rules state that MPs must spend the majority of time in their main home, but during part of this time Mr Cohen rented out his Colchester property.
In January, the Commons Standards and Privileges Committee said that Mr Cohen committed a "particularly serious" breach of expenses rules by living almost exclusively in the east London house while renting out the Colchester house. He was ordered to apologise and stripped of the £65,000 resettlement grant he would have received when he stands down from Parliament at this year's election.
MPs Elliot Morley of Scunthorpe, David Chaytor of Bury North and Livingston's Jim Devine will appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday alongside Conservative peer Lord Hanningfield.
