Ex-councillor criticises evidence in fraud trial

A former councillor accused of running a bogus coronavirus testing firm and money laundering has told a trial the case against him "isn't fair".

Faisal Shoukat, who represented Halifax's Park ward on Calderdale Council, is accused of operating a fraudulent business and causing a public nuisance alongside co-defendants former justice minister Shahid Malik, Dewsbury East councillor Paul Moore, Dr Alexander Zarneh and Lynn Connell.

Mr Shoukat, a Halifax pharmacist, and Mr Malik, of Burnley, are also accused of money laundering. The defendants have denied all charges.

Mr Shoukat, 39, said the prosecution had not been "honest" in their depiction of his and Mr Malik's business, RT Diagnostics.

Prosecutors have alleged RT Diagnostics "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.

Earlier in the trial, prosecutors said "significant" amounts of money generated from the business were also transferred into bank accounts belonging to Mr Shoukat and Mr Malik, the Labour MP for Dewsbury from 2005 to 2010.

The amounts included an £822,000 payment to Halifax Healthcare, a company run by Mr Shoukat, and £1.22m into Mr Malik's personal accounts.

Giving evidence in his defence earlier, Mr Shoukat told jurors at Bradford Crown Court: "Much has been made of this fact that we somehow emptied these bank accounts when these dividends were taken.

"There are still millions of pounds sat in the bank account of Real Time Diagnostics."

Mr Shoukat continued: "We hadn't taken off to Dubai, the Middle East, the Bahamas or wherever.

"This rhetoric they [prosecutors] have been trying to put out isn't fair, it's not honest, it's not genuine."

Later, he described the evidence of a prosecution witness who inspected the laboratory as a "farce".

He added: "My life is at play here."

The trial previously heard how RT Diagnostics used test kits supplied by a Turkish company which were not approved in the UK.

Mr Shoukhat described the Turkish firm, which he was introduced to through Mr Malik, as a "huge enterprise" whose test kits were being used in Turkey and Germany.

He added: "It's almost been portrayed as this company from a third-world country and their standards and the way they operated weren't on par with our standards."

Mr Shoukhat went on to admit there were "issues" in the working relationship between RT Diagnostics and the company, however.

The trial previously heard how Mr Shoukat and Mr Malik, 58, had set up a second business, Real Time Diagnostics, with the sole purpose of opening a bank account into which funds from the similarly titled RT Diagnostics were transferred.

The prosecution had described Real Time Diagnostics as a "phoenix company".

However, Mr Shoukat insisted it was set up because RT Diagnostics had been unable to open a business bank account due to its "complex structure", which listed a foreign director and another company - part-owned by Mr Malik - among its directors on Companies House.

Real Time Diagnostics, which had a "simple structure", was set up after advice from Mr Shoukat's accountant for the sole purpose of banking, he said.

The defendant also disputed an earlier claim from the prosecution that RT Diagnostics' laboratory at Park Works in Halifax lacked the capacity to carry out the number of tests it reported.

Mr Shoukat, of Savile Park, is the first defendant to give evidence in his defence, with the trial scheduled to last until March.

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