In November 2012, jurors at Southwark Crown Court ruled that she had falsified her parliamentary expenses; she had been unable to stand trial because of mental health issues, but the case was nevertheless heard without her.
[14] From 2006,[12] Moran was a member of the Home Affairs Committee, where she took an interest in helping female victims of domestic violence and in issues of child protection.
She was for a time chairwoman of the All-Party Group on Domestic Violence and worked with Women's Aid to launch online projects such as WomenSpeak and KidSpeak.
These caused Moran to announce she would not stand in the 2010 general election, and she was later barred from doing so by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.
[28] In a statement she asserted: "I do understand constituents' anger at the current fees regime, which is why I will be repaying the full amount claimed for my home in Southampton.
[32] On 14 May, The Daily Telegraph reported that Moran had billed the taxpayer almost £4,000 in respect of an employment tribunal case brought by a former member of her staff.
[36] It called for her to resign immediately rather than continuing to claim expenses and receiving a big payoff and large pension by remaining in her seat until the general election.
[43] Liberal Democrat candidate Qurban Hussain suggested she had gone into hiding, "leaving her constituents completely unrepresented while continuing to draw her generous salary".
[44] On 6 September 2011, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that Moran would face 21 criminal charges:[45] 15 of false accounting and six of forgery.
[46] Moran was sent to Southwark Crown Court for trial on 30 October 2011; she failed to appear and a 'not guilty' plea was entered by default in her absence.
[47] On 15 December 2011, Mr Justice Saunders was informed that psychiatrists considered Moran unfit to plead with the defence contending that the trial should therefore not proceed.
[1] In December 2012, she was sentenced to a two-year supervision and treatment order, the judge commenting that although some might feel she had "got away with it", the court had acted "in accordance with the law of the land and on the basis of the evidence that it hears".
[49] In 2010 it was reported by the Daily Telegraph that an IP address associated with the Parliamentary estate had been discovered attempting to remove information on Margaret Moran's role in the expenses scandal from her Wikipedia page.
[50] In March 2010, Moran was one of the MPs involved in offering influential political lobbying for financial reward in a sting operation set up by the Channel 4 Dispatches programme.
In the film, Moran appears to claim to be able to help modify laws on immigration in order to boost the business interests of the fake company.
[51] She also claimed that she could call on a "girls' gang" of female ministers to help,[52] and yet, while she appeared to be enthusiastically courting the fake company, half an hour after the meeting her office told a reporter that she was unavailable to do any work on behalf of her constituents because she was "not very well at the moment".
[55] Moran repeatedly used House of Commons headed paper to write letters in support of EQN, without disclosing her involvement with the company.
[57] In 2007 a Spanish Court ruled that she had illegally blocked a right of way at her holiday home in Carataunas, Spain, by installing a gate and digging up the path with an excavator.
[57] In 2009 it emerged that one of Moran's employees at eQuality Networks had successfully nominated her to the shortlist of MP of the Year at the Women in Public Life Awards, describing her as a "forward thinking, modern day suffragette".
[61] In 2009[citation needed] she married her long-time partner of 30 years,[24] Michael Booker, who lives and works at the University of Southampton as a safety adviser.