In 2004, the Department for Work and Pensions brought criminal charges against Mote for allegedly claiming £32,000 in income support and £35,000 in housing benefit from Chichester District Council over a six-year period without declaring his monthly earnings of £4,000. Mote was committed for trial at Chichester Crown Court on the 27^th April 2004. He would face nine charges of false accounting and one charge of making a false representation. On 16 June, at a plea and directions hearing, he pleaded not guilty to the charges and a trial date was fixed for the 15^th November. The UK Independence Party withdrew the whip from Mote on the 15^th July 2004 after learning from an article in The Daily Telegraph that he faced trial; Mote had failed to inform his party of the impending charges.

On the 4^th October 2004, Mote sought to claim immunity from prosecution on the basis of his status as an MEP. His application was heard by Judge Aikens at Lewes Crown Court. He held that Chichester Crown Court was obliged to stay proceedings until the European Parliament had exercised its right to waive immunity. On the 3^rd February 2005, the Attorney General applied to the Parliament whose Committee on Legal Affairs unanimously granted the waiver on 20 June and gave its approval to proceedings continuing in England.

On the 5^th April 2005, Mote appealed the Parliament's decision to the Court of First Instance (CFI). He gave no notice of his application to the Attorney General, nor to Judge Aikens at Lewes Crown Court, meaning that the British Government was unable to intervene in the case. Mote later applied on the 15^th December 2006 to the CFI for an interim order suspending the Parliament's decision pending the outcome of their decision. This was rejected on the basis that the condition of urgency was not satisfied.

Following the Parliament's waiver, the Attorney General applied to lift the stay imposed by Judge Aikens. The application was heard by Judge Gross on 17 October 2006 who granted the application, ruling that the desirability of proceeding with the trial outweighed any potential injustice to Mote that might result if the CFI were to annul the decision of the European Parliament to grant a waiver.

The case returned to England and a further 16 counts of fraud were added to Mote's original indictment. He complained once again to the European Parliament on the 4^th May 2007 that this constituted a "contempt", but the Parliament remarked that he had no immunity to defend and took no action. A second application was made to the CFI for interim measures, but this was also rejected.

A four-week trial commenced at Portsmouth Crown Court in July 2007; proceedings against Mote were led by government lawyers who had taken over the case from Chichester District Council in late 2005. The court heard that Mote had claimed housing and council tax benefits between 1991 and 1993 following the collapse of his business. He began to claim benefits again from 1996 but failed to declare income from various enterprises including a cleaning company and gambling on the currency markets.

In total, Mote spent just short of £73,000 between the 20^nd February 1996 and the 29^th September 2002 to fund a "luxury lifestyle", regularly dining out and holidaying in France, The Caribbean and the United States. He was also accused of pocketing "substantial sums" through his interests in two firms.

Joanna Greenberg QC, prosecuting, said that from 1996, Mote had filled out benefit claim forms stating that he was unemployed and had no financial assets, even though at the time he had business interests in an international marketing firm called Tanner Management and another company, JC Commercial Management.

On the 17^th August 2007 Mote was found guilty by a jury of 21 charges of deception by falsely claiming £65,506 in benefits, and acquitted of a further four charges. Judge Richard Price warned him to expect a custodial sentence, but allowed bail on condition that Mote surrendered his British and diplomatic passports, as well as providing £50,000 in sureties.

Mote was sentenced on the 31^st August to nine months imprisonment to be served in Ford open prison, West Sussex. During sentencing, Judge Price said that Mote, "a truly dishonest man", had executed a "carefully planned scheme of dishonesty" and had taken "a great deal of trouble to cover [his] tracksto say that this case has ruined you is an understatement, it is a tragedy."

Mote's defence counsel described his client as a Walter Mitty character and admitted that the sentence was a "massive fall from grace". Mote applied for the third time to the CFI for relief against the impending imprisonment, highlighting the urgent nature of his request. This was also rejected by the CFI on the 22^nd November 2007.

Reacting to the sentence, the leader of the UK Independence Party, Nigel Farage, said he was "disgusted and horrified" at the leniency of the sentence. If Mote had been jailed for more than one year, he would have lost his seat in the European Parliament, which could have been reassigned to another representative. Farage added that if "Mote had a shred of integrity left, he'd resign."

Mote was released from prison in November 2007 under the Government's tagging scheme.

As a result of the decision, Mote was obliged to repay £67,000 of the falsely claimed benefits.

He further arranged for allowance payments to Edward Hayes solicitors for 'advice in relation to his duties as an MEP' but instead used the cash to fund his defence against the benefit fraud.

Mote, of Binstead, Alton, Hampshire, was ordered to pay back £204,944 of his £533,972.77 benefit. The figure was agreed upon by Mote's representative Aska Fujita and prosecutor Paul Sharkey outside court. If he fails to pay it within three months he could face an additional two years behind bars.

In 2015, Mote was jailed for a second time, this time for five years after being found guilty of fraudulently claiming nearly £500,000 in European Parliament expenses.