A COUNTY councillor from Oxford expelled from the Labour Party after being found guilty of benefit fraud has called for MPs caught up in the parliamentary expenses scandal to be prosecuted and have to face a court as she had to.

Former nurse Olive McIntosh-Stedman, of Williamson Way, Rose Hill, said she paid back the money – a total of £3,305.96 – she obtained illegally but was still taken to court.

As the scandal continued to unfold, Mrs McIntosh-Stedman called for a police investigation because she said many of the reasons being given by MPs echoed her own claims.

The 66-year-old was convicted of making a false statement to obtain council tax benefit.

The charges related to a form she filled out in December 2002 in which she failed to declare the income she received from an NHS pension.

The grandmother-of-six also failed to disclose a savings account and an allowance she received from being a county councillor.

Referring to the case of Elliot Morley, the former agricultural minister who continued to claim taxpayers’ money for a mortgage even though it had been paid off, she said: “I am disgusted, particularly with the MP who claimed £16,000 for a mortgage that he had already paid off.

“He should resign and be taken to court. If I had to go to court for four days he should be in court for 20 days.”

Mrs McIntosh-Stedman is standing down as councillor for Cowley and Littlemore and not standing for re-election.

She added: “I paid the money back months before I was taken to court.

“Mr Morley says he has paid the money back, but so did I and I had my name dragged through the mud.

“It was a hell of an ordeal.

“I was absolutely humiliated.

“What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Laws should be for all of us.”

Mrs McIntosh-Stedman was given 50 hours unpaid community work and told to pay £5,000 towards the cost of bringing the case before a jury after being found guilty of fraud at Oxford Crown Court in December 2007.

However, she has always denied deliberately misleading Oxford City Council, claiming she simply forgot to give all the details of her income. Many of the MPs whose expense claims have been questioned have said they were operating within the rules.

However, several have started paying back some of the money they claimed. Others said errors in claims were because of oversight and were not deliberate attempts to make bogus claims.

Mrs McIntosh-Stedman said she was stepping down to look after her elderly mother.

tshepherd@oxfordmail.co.uk