'No evidence' ex-MP committed Covid fraud - trial

A former MP "had no controlling or managerial responsibility" in a coronavirus testing firm accused of fraudulent trading, a court has heard.

Shahid Malik, who served as justice minister under Gordon Brown, is one of five people on trial at Bradford Crown Court over their role at RT Diagnostics.

Prosecutors allege the firm "purported to be a testing laboratory" when, in reality, tests were "dumped in a room" with customers sent fake negative results for the deadly virus, thereby endangering people's health.

Mr Malik's barrister, Jonathan Laidlaw KC, said his client was far removed from day-to-day operations and "was a non-executive director in the true sense of the word".

Mr Malik, 58, who lost his Dewsbury seat in 2010 after serving one Parliamentary term, denies fraudulent trading, causing a public nuisance and money laundering.

The trial previously heard he was paid "just under" £1.5m in dividends by August 2021 as part of his role as a shareholder in RT Diagnostics, which he founded alongside one of his co-defendants, former Calderdale councillor Faisal Shoukat.

Mr Laidlaw told jurors: "There is nothing illegal about making a lot of money unless you have set up a business to commit fraud or the business you set up, to your knowledge, descends into a fraudulent business.

"The fact that Mr Malik made a great deal of money out of RT cannot possibly, or fairly, on its own be the basis of a guilty verdict.

"He would need to know that the business he had set up was a fraudulent business, or one to his knowledge that had become a business which was committing fraud."

He went on to say that it was "absurd" to suggest the business was fraudulent from the outset, adding: "All the evidence points in the opposite direction".

Th jury heard there was also "absolutely no evidence" of Mr Malik being told about the problems RT Diagnostics faced when it began trading.

"If those working at RT developed poor practices in [Mr Malik's] absence, he wasn't a party to those," said Mr Laidlaw.

"There is no evidence he encouraged anybody to behave in that way."

Mr Laidlaw said his client, from Burnley, was living and working abroad by the time the business "became overrun because they had undercut the rest of the market, and when all the allegations of misbehaviour had started".

He said the defendant's role was "no more than a part-funder and facilitator" in its early days.

"He wasn't somebody with any operational position.

"He was involved in the early days of facilitation, but no more than that."

Mr Malik, who was described as "a person of the highest integrity" in one character reference, was of previous good character, according to Mr Laidlaw.

He said it was "empirically unlikely that any individual approaching that milestone of 60 would suddenly, for the first time, decide to commit a criminal offence".

Since leaving Parliament his client had been "combining on the one hand good, unpaid work for others - particularly in developing countries abroad - together with developing his business interests - of which RT Diagnostics was legally one," said Mr Laidlaw.

He resigned as director prior to leaving the country on 28 May 2021 and only made a payment from the firm's bank account after that date as Mr Shoukat was unable to, he added.

On the use of a bank account operating under a separate name from RT Diagnostics, Mr Laidlaw said: "There is nothing illegal, or indeed sinister, about a company trading through one name yet holding a bank account in another."

He accused prosecutors of making "wild and baseless assertions" about laundering money via the payment of dividends, adding: "[RT Diagnostics] could easily afford a dividend without putting at risk its liabilities."

Mr Laidlaw also labelled a prosecution claim that Avery Labs, part-funded by Mr Malik, was set up to pick up where RT Diagnostics left off after its removal from the government's list of test providers a "gross overstatement not reflective of the evidence".

"There isn't a single piece of evidence that the prosecution can point to that he had anything to do with the set up," he said.

In his closing remarks, Mr Laidlaw told jurors his client's role in the business was "very limited indeed", adding: "There is no evidence upon which you could convict my client of anything."

The trial continues.

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