FORMER leader of Essex County Council and life peer Lord Hanningfield will stand trial in July over claims he fiddled his parliamentary expenses to claim £3,300 he was not entitled to.

Lord Hanningfield is charged with wrongly claiming for House of Lords allowances on 11 occasions in July 2013.

The 75-year-old appeared at Southwark Crown Court today and denied one count of false accounting.

Judge Alistair McCreath adjourned the case for trial on July 18.

Lord Hanningfield was released on unconditional bail.