A FORMER chancellor of Bournemouth University has been charged with an £11,000 fraud over the parliamentary expenses scandal.

Lord Taylor of Warwick reportedly claimed money for visiting his sick mother in the Midlands even though she had died in 2001.

The Crown Prosecution Service has been investigating the claims since they were made last year, and it announced yesterday that he has been charged with six counts of false accounting.

Keir Starmer, the director of public prosecutions, said Lord Taylor allegedly claimed overnight subsistence and mileage in 2006 and 2007.

Lord Taylor is a former judge and held the ceremonial Chancellor’s post at Bournemouth University from 2001 to 2006.

Bournemouth University chose him from more than 40 nominations because of his experience in law and the media, two specialist subjects at the university.

At the time, vice-chancellor Professor Gillian Slater said: “He will make an excellent ambassador.”

The 57-year-old came to prominence in 1992 when he ran for parliament in the safe Tory seat of Cheltenham but lost after suffering racist abuse from his own party.

He was ennobled in 1996 and went on to run an Ealing-based public relations company and become a radio and TV presenter.

A Bournemouth University spokesman said he stepped down after his five-year tenure came to an end.

“We haven’t had a relationship with him since then,” said the spokesman.

A Conservative spokesman said that Lord Taylor had voluntarily resigned from the party. “He is due to appear at City of Westminster magistrates' court on August 13.

He is the second Tory peer to charged with fraud over his parliamentary expenses. One serving Labour MP, and three former Labour MPs, have also been charged.

Keir Starmer made one of his first speeches as the new director of public prosecutions at Bournemouth University in April last year, shortly before the expenses scandal broke in May.