An MEP who fiddled tens of thousands of pounds in expenses to buy fine wines and a car faces jail after he confessed during his trial.

Tom Wise, 61, who was elected to the European Parliament for the United Kingdom Independence Party, spent a year channelling £36,000 of taxpayers’ money into a bank account that he secretly controlled.

Wise, a former policeman, pretended that the £3,000 secretarial assistance allowance he received every month was for his researcher, Lindsay Jenkins, but after paying her £500 he spent the rest “in support of his own interests”, Southwark Crown Court was told.

He had denied false accounting but changed his not guilty plea three days into a three-week trial. The offence carries a maximum term of seven years. He was allowed to remain on bail and will be sentenced next week.

Mrs Jenkins, 62, who had also been on trial for false accounting and using criminal property, was cleared after Wise, of Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, changed his plea.

Wise told colleagues that he was “repatriating money from the EU to the UK”. He had been filmed bragging to a newspaper journalist about his “cushy” job and saying: “It is the opportunity to make shedloads of money.”

He misled Nigel Farage, the UKIP leader, about his fraudulent claims and was expelled from the party after his actions were exposed by a newspaper in 2005.

Wise, who sat as an independent until leaving the European Parliament in June, began to repay money when the scam was revealed. Mark Fenhalls, for the prosecution, said: “He did so because he had been caught and was trying to minimise the trouble he was in.”

Paul Nuttall, the chairman of UKIP, said: “Tom Wise broke faith with the UK Independence Party, which is why the whip was withdrawn.”

Wise could be the second of the party’s 12 MEPs elected in 2004 to go to prison. Ashley Mote was jailed for nine months for benefit fraud in 2007.

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