Expenses 'mole' not exactly a beacon of moral guidance

The man who exposed MPs as thieving, treacherous scumbags is himself a thieving, treacherous scumbag, we can almost exclusively reveal.

Former SAS swashbuckler John Wick, who counts a number of Tory grandees amongst his closest circle of money grabbing chums, initially attempted to sell a stolen data disk containing expenses details of 650 MPs to a number of newspapers for a reported £300,000.

But Wick was burned when thieving, treacherous scumbags at The Daily Express, with whom he had agreed a £10,000 payment in exchange for Jacqui Smith's expenses information, refused to pay up in the knowledge that he wouldn't have a leg to stand on if he pursued the payment in court. It is thought he had approached the newspaper with a contract written in crayon on the back of a fag packet.

The twice-married 60 year old - pictured right carrying a bag full of dirty laundry - eventually sold the entire list of thieving MP scumbags to the fine, upstanding men at The Daily Telegraph for the knock-down price of £100,000, or £153 per scoundrel. He says he 'was motivated by a sense of public duty'; the Telegraph says it was also acting in the public interest by publishing expenses in a deliciously teasing day-by-day circulation-bolstering scumfest.

However, Wick has left a slimy trail of failed businesses and unpaid taxes on the road to his reinvention as dutiful public crusader - his 16 failed companies have amassed an expense-busting £7m of debt and left scores of ex-associates out of pocket. Two former army colleagues unfortunate enough to enter into partnership with him have together had almost £150,000 scumbagged off them thanks to Wick's commercial failings.

His rubbish business sense and taste for setting up hopeless new ventures has earned him a reputation for 'phoenixing' - the term for businesses that collapse only to be started up afresh with new names shortly afterwards. Debts Wick has left in his cash-haemorrhaging wake include an outrageous £34.56 owed to his milkman and a sexy £35 unpaid to the Shangri-La guest house in Whitley Bay. Sources claim he is 'pathologically incapable of saving money', and is regularly seen lighting Cuban cigars with £50 notes.