Louise Haigh

[Tryingtokeepgoing]

AIBU to think that if you really didn’t commit the crime, don’t plead guilty even if your solicitor advises you to. I mean, sure, for a traffic or speeding offence maybe that’d be the expedient thing to do. But fraud…?

Louise Haigh resigns over stolen mobile phone fraud conviction

https://www.thetimes.com/article/6772fe81-8e36-4e5d-baa8-4902a6553b4d?shareToken=3fe1e52cb5b31dc1a3e40721c219a69e

I feel bad for her. It was overkill for charging her for fraud.

Total overkill. Sad she had to resign.

It certainly sounds like overkill…so surely there’s more to it. I can’t see why you’d plead guilty otherwise, if the circumstances are as she has conveyed…

I think there is more to it. Her statement is very careful and feels like there is a lot not being said.

She has explained that she was poorly advised to plead guilty and regrets following her solicitor's advice.

Since Keir Starmer was fully aware of the background I'm not sure why she felt the need to resign just because someone at the Times has dug up some dirt. She could have just issued a statement.

Poorly advised perhaps. But I guess my AIBU is why even then you’d plead guilty to fraud if you knew you hadn’t done it. I certainly wouldn’t, and would be protesting my innocence regardless of what a solicitors advice was. Based on her description of events there’s not enough evidence to convict.

It just gets worse for Labour.

She’s been caught out and resigned which is typically how politicians used to react in these situations, rather than desperately clinging on which we’ve seen more of in recent years.
The press coverage (R4 this morning for e.g) seems disproportionate, almost like they don’t know how to handle it.
Complete ‘whatabboutery’ of course but it’s quite stark when you compare it to the really quite limited coverage of Reform’ MP James McMurdock around him first not declaring his previous conviction, then the more recent revelations that he lied about what actually happened. Stark but not surprising.

Whereas the previous government was squeaky clean, never a whiff of a scandal.

But he is not in the Cabinet, if she had just been an MP coverage would have been much less

Labour have to at least try to look honest since their entire pitch at the General Election was "We aren't the sleazy Tories".

Especially after the gifts from wealthy backers became common knowledge.

Indeed..sadly Labour set themselves up as a government of service.

There is very clearly a lot more to this story, particularly the fact that she was investigated by her employer for multiple instances of mobile phones ‘going missing’. For anyone who works in a large corporate environment this is unusual and would likely be sparked by significant concerns over behaviour. One of these investigations became a criminal investigation. This is not the behaviour required of an MP, she should never have been in a cabinet position in the first place. It’s hugely depressing that this government is turning out even worse than the last

She hasn't been "caught out". From what I've skimmed read, she has a,ways been completely open about it and declared it a necessary.

What's happened is the media with an agenda are digging hard for any angle against Labour they can find.

I voted Tory until the election before the last one. Now the more I read about the power and influence of an extremely wealthy minority, including media owners, the more concerned I get.

We need a strong, independent media.

If anyone actually read the article they’d see that Aviva investigated multiple instances she’d claimed a phone was stolen but she was only prosecuted for one. There is clearly much more to this.

You don’t think it’s in the public interest for the electorate to know a Government minister had a criminal conviction for fraud? Absurd.

The woman lied. She said she had been mugged and her mobile stolen. Then it miracuously turned up.
She wasted police time, and did it only to stir shit.
Not fit for public office, male or female

She had the opportunity to inform the police of her error when she found the phone at her home. She chose not to do that. She should have resigned over her previous scandal - she was a liability.

Be interesting to know if Aviva then sacked her, as I've read it, she was working for Aviva and the claim was with her work phone(s).

So likey fired too for gross misconduct?

Her story doesn't make any sense to me, you get mugged, you think your phone's been stolen and then some time later find out it hasn't, how massive are her handbag or pockets that it took "some time" to find the phone? Where exactly was it all that time?

Does she think we are daft enough to believe that?

Isn't it interesting that somebody that did this in 2014? So it's a spent conviction. Which, by the way, we do tell people that we want people that have committed any crime to try to get a job? This is actually saying that if you have a spent conviction, which quite a lot of us do, you can't get any work I don't think that's right.
So if kier starmer had known that she had this spent conviction, what was the problem?
People that are saying this gets worse for labour, have to remember the amount of mps that sat in the conservative government, backbenches that had actual crimes against them.Labour's actual real time that didn't stand the fuck down
But apparently there was a lot in labour that didn't want this lady to be in the government position. So maybe there's been a lot of that behind this decision

Are lawyers actually allowed to tell someone to plead guilty if that person has told the lawyer that they're innocent? I can't see how they can, it would be highly unethical.

Spent conviction done in 2014 Jeffery archer went to prison still a mp after

I’m also confused by the reported story and assume there must be more to it.

Technically she was fraudulent so surely she had to plead guilty.She did seem like a breath of fresh air and it's a pity that she's had to go.