Analysed: the Woodwards in court

The fraud allegations against Louise Woodward's parents were the latest and most venomous twist in a row which erupted two years ago after the former au pair sacked her American lawyer, Elaine Whitfield Sharp.

A police officer who arrested the lawyer for drink-driving is alleged to have heard her say she no longer believed Ms Woodward was innocent.

Mrs Whitfield Sharp and her husband, Dan added fuel to the flames with their claim that Ms Woodward's mother Susan had asked for $15,400 (?9,100) from their daughter's appeal fund to pay for an extended stay at their home when they had charged her nothing.

A police investigation was launched in 1998 and the Woodwards were arrested last summer.

Louise Woodward's mother and father Gary regularly flew out to America to visit their daughter after her arrest in February 1997 when the baby in her care became ill. She was charged with murder when eight-month-old Matthew Eappen died.

Back home in the village of Elton, Cheshire, an appeal fund raised ?20,000 which was used to pay off the couple's credit card bills when they were in the US.

A proper trust was set up as the British public opened their chequebooks and sent in more than ?250,000 in donations.

In April 1997 Mrs Woodward moved into a spare room at Ms Whitfield Sharp's home, where she stayed until October. Shortly before the trial the couple moved to an apartment near the Boston court paid for by Louise's au pair agency.

Louise was convicted and imprisoned for second degree murder in October 1997, but the verdict was subsequently reduced to involuntary manslaughter and she was sentenced to the time she had already served awaiting trial.

Mrs Whitfield Sharp, who originally comes from Merseyside, claimed she was told about the invoice by a journalist in June 1998, after an appeal fund trustee read in a British newspaper that Mrs Woodward had not been charged for her accommodation.

At the Woodwards' Chester Crown Court trial, she said she would never have charged $2,200 a month to put someone up in her spare room, as the invoice alleged.

"That would be outrageous. It would be extortionate. That is more than our mortgage. It is way over the market value," she told the court.

"Apart from the fact that I wouldn't charge somebody to stay in the spare bedroom after inviting them into my home, I think $2,200 is an outlandish figure."

The trial has heard vitriolic claim and counter-claim; Mrs Woodward said the lawyer was angry at not being allowed to make money by writing a book that 'dished the dirt' on the family.

Mrs Whitfield Sharp denied this, claiming she had considered writing a general text on legal issues surrounding shaken baby syndrome.

Mrs Woodward insisted she paid Mrs Whitfield Sharp for accommodation, and that it was the lawyer's idea to submit the invoice.

The trial also revealed that the Woodwards were painstakingly thorough in drawing up their expense claims. Among the receipts submitted at the time of the rent claim was $6.80 for pet food for Louise's hamster and 50 cents for bubblegum.