Labour MP Apsana Begum has been found not guilty at Snaresbrook Crown Court of housing fraud. The BBC reports Begum “collapsed and wept in the dock after the verdicts were returned”…

Ex-Tory Minister (and notorious cad) Tim Yeo is once again on the wrong end of a judge’s wrath, after being found guilty of deliberately misusing his “fiduciary powers” as chair of TMO Renewables and repeatedly offering misleading evidence in court. As if being called “dishonest” by one judge wasn’t enough…

Yeo, along with several other company directors, was accused of “a dishonest strategy for maintaining control of the Board” after a majority shareholder moved to replace the board’s membership; a strategy which included “mislead[ing] existing shareholders” into thinking the company had just received a substantial cash investment, when in reality the new friendly shareholders had not invested a penny. Looks like another costly mistake for Yeo; representing yourself in court because you can’t afford a lawyer never bodes well…

As you’d expect, the full judgement pulls no punches. Highlights from the judge’s conclusions include:

“I reject Mr Yeo’s evidence, which seemed to me to protest too much.

He frequently resorted to very long recitations of his case which avoided giving a straightforward answer to the question he had been asked and appeared designed to take the discussion in a different direction […] this propensity on the part of Mr Yeo to “speechify” tended to give his evidence a contrived, evasive and rather self-serving quality.

In all the circumstances I find that the issue of shares to VSA was in breach of the Director Defendants’ fiduciary powers in that it was made for an improper purpose; I also find that each of the Director Defendants was motivated by this improper purpose.”

Yeo also issued a counterclaim to refute the judgements – no luck. The claim was dismissed.

There is widespread speculation that Tim Yeo faces bankruptcy, which would see him disqualified from being a director. This follows his costly and unsuccessful claim for defamation against The Times. Looks like the chancer’s spivvy dealings will, at the age of 76, finally finish him off…

Hat-tip:  ShareProphets

With Apsana Begum’s housing fraud trial still ongoing, John McDonnell made a guest star appearance this afternoon as a live defense witness. While it only lasted a few minutes, McDonnell gave the hard left MP a gushing character reference. Guido’s courtroom mole gives the rundown:

“She came across as a very straightforward, sincere, committed person”

“[She is] honest, sincere, extremely caring, and she comes across always as wanting to do the right thing. She comes across as a very good person.”

McDonnell confesses he was hoping to take her on as a PPS had Labour won in 2019, saying he had confidence in her judgment, ability and dedication. Damning…

When asked whether she was intelligent, McDonnell replied “very bright”. He confirmed that in his view she is “capable”. When asked whether she is a good political operator he claimed the term would be “derogatory” though “can put a good argument”

“She has won over people with her honesty and sincerity in Labour and in the House overall.”

The court returns at 11am tomorrow and deliberates on Thursday…

Apsana Begum’s trial yesterday saw the Poplar & Limehouse MP accused by Tower Hamlets council of defrauding them out of £64,000 in social housing claims over three years. She supposedly “withheld information” to boost her chances of getting on the list, specifically the fact she was no longer living in an overcrowded home at the time of her application. Begum claims she kept housing officials informed “as best she could”.

Begum applied for the social housing list in 2011, remaining on it until March 2016, at which point she was awarded a studio flat tenancy. Her 2011 application was on the basis her family home was overcrowded, however it’s claimed she failed to tell the council after her circumstances changed. Given she worked for Tower Hamlets from 2011-13, the whole affair must be rather awkward for her…

UK Supreme Court President Lord Reed has pushed back on campaign groups challenging legislation in the courts – typically by exploiting the loose definition of ‘differential treatment‘ – as a last-ditch effort to derail policies they don’t like. What a coincidence. Guido wonders which learned ears will been listening…

Writing in the Supreme Court’s judgement on the ‘two child limit’ legislation (which ‘restricts payment of amounts of subsistence benefit for children to the first two children in a family‘), Reed said:

“In practice, challenges to legislation on the ground of discrimination have become increasingly common in the United Kingdom. They are usually brought by campaigning organisations which lobbied unsuccessfully against the measure when it was being considered in Parliament, and then act as solicitors for persons affected by the legislation, or otherwise support legal challenges brought in their names, as a means of continuing their campaign.”

The legislature legislates, not the judiciary. Of course, some leftie lawyers are already squawking about how this is a “worrying” development because Reed has refused to drag a domestic court into what is ultimately a political question over the jurisdiction of the ECHR. Lawyers need to learn you can’t litigate every political decision you disagree with, try to win an election, like that lawyer Keir Starmer is trying… 

Last month, Jolyon Maugham commenced legal action against Boris Johnson personally over the PM’s decision to nominate the philanthropist and Tory donor Peter Cruddas for a peerage. Headlines quoted Maugham at his most bombastic, claiming they were challenging the corruption at the heart of Downing Street:

“… the Prime Minister took legally irrelevant considerations – past donations and the prospect of future donations – into account in making him a Baron.  And so we’re suing. We’ve instructed Bindmans LLP, Dan Squires QC and Alice Irving… Make no mistake, we intend to issue proceedings.”

Guido can report that no actual proceedings ever commenced.

Sources tell Guido that was because it was such a flimsy case. The letter to the Prime Minister, waved around loudly by Jolyon and his Good Law Project, amounted to no more than a press release. In the view of the government’s Treasury Solicitor the matter was not even justiciable, and it is noteworthy that the letter did not even seek a serious remedy beyond asking the PM to say that he should not have nominated Cruddas for the peerage. If this is lawfare, Jolyon is firing blanks…

The government’s response was that any legal action was out of time, the nomination was six months prior to Jolyon firing off his letter, it was in any event not open to judicial review, that constitutionally because of the separation of legal powers it could not be judicially reviewed, and that it was a political act – not a judicial matter. The intention would infringe upon parliamentary privilege, that the nomination is an exercise of prerogative, not statutory powers, and for many more reasons which should be known to any undergraduate who has studied the constitution, never mind a barrister, meritless. M’learned friend tells Guido dismissively:

“It was a telling feature of Jolyon’s letter that no action was in fact requested of the Defendant (Boris) at all. This underlines the lack of a proper justiciable legal basis to the claim.”

In short, it was just a headline-grabbing publicity stunt for Jolyon. This morning, Bindmans – Jolyon’s solicitors – quietly and without any fanfare served a notice of discontinuance. They were out of time again…

It has not gone unnoticed that Jolyon tweeted about Lord Cruddas 11 times, and that he got carried away with his allegations of corruption. He may get his day in court yet – as a defendant…