Morley eventually pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Southwark on 7 April 2011 before Mr Justice Saunders, who had presided over the other prosecutions in the Parliamentary expenses scandal. On 20 May 2011, Morley was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment on two counts of false accounting. He served four months in prison – a quarter of the sentence – and was then released under the home detention curfew scheme. On 8 June 2011, he was expelled from the Privy Council. It was the first expulsion since Edgar Speyer in 1921.