Denis MacShane

Denis MacShane (born Josef Denis Matyjaszek, 21 May 1948) is a British former Labour Party politician. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Rotherham from 1994 to his resignation in 2012 and served in the Labour Government as Minister of State for Europe from 2002 until 2005. In November 2012, he was suspended from the Labour Party after the House of Commons Standards and Privileges Committee found that he had submitted 19 false invoices "plainly intended to deceive" the parliamentary expenses authority. The same day he announced his intention to resign as MP for Rotherham. Subsequently, in October 2013, he resigned from the Privy Council after discussions with the body's secretariat.In November 2013 he pleaded guilty to false accounting at the Old Bailey, by submitting false receipts for £12,900. On 23 December, Mr Justice Sweeney sentenced MacShane to six months in prison. He served his sentence in HM Prison Belmarsh and HM Prison Brixton, and subsequently by wearing an electronic tag. In 2014 MacShane was asked to leave the European Parliament members’ bar where he was meeting politicians to research a book. In the 2014 book Prison Diaries he claimed to hold the status of "politician prisoner".