David Conn's Blog

Special report: Uniserve was paid £1.4bn for Covid contracts that included supply of £178.5m in never-used equipment

When Mrs Justice Cockerill handed down her judgment in the high court against PPE Medpro, the company linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone, for supplying unsafe personal protective equipment during the Covid crisis, her findings were a landmark in a five-year saga that cast the opaque world of government deal-making into stark light.

PPE Medpro was ordered to refund the full £122m that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) paid for unusable gowns in the summer of 2020, as Boris Johnson’s government scrambled to refill the UK’s depleted stocks.

Statement by administrators puts PPE Medpro’s total debts at £188m, including £39m said to be owed to HMRC

The firm linked to the former Conservative peer Michelle Mone that was found last month to have supplied unusable personal protective equipment during the pandemic owes £39m in unpaid taxes, according to company documents.

PPE Medpro, owned by Mone’s husband, the Isle of Man-based businessman Doug Barrowman, was put into administration on 30 September, the day before the high court judgment was made public.

Firm was ordered by high court to return sum paid by DHSC for unusable surgical gowns by 4pm on Wednesday

A company linked to the former Conservative peer Michelle Mone has failed to pay the government any of the £122m ordered by a high court judgment for supplying unusable personal protective equipment during the Covid pandemic.

Mrs Justice Cockerill ruled that PPE Medpro must, by a deadline of 4pm on 15 October, return the money it was paid by the Department of Health and Social Care for 25m sterile surgical gowns under a contract awarded in June 2020.

The high court told the company linked to Michelle Mone to pay up over the supply of defective gowns, but there appears no clear route to reclaim the funds

The five-year unravelling of Britain’s most high-profile Covid contracts scandal involving a baroness, her husband and multimillion-pound government deals accelerated last week with a high court judgment against the company linked to the former Tory peer Michelle Mone.

The judge, Mrs Justice Cockerill, ruled that PPE Medpro, owned by Mone’s husband, the Isle of Man-based businessman Doug Barrowman, supplied defective personal protective equipment (PPE) for use in the NHS during the pandemic. Cockerill ordered that PPE Medpro must return the sum of £122m, which the Department of Health and Social Care paid for the order of 25m sterile surgical gowns, under a contract awarded in June 2020 via the VIP lane.

Case against Michelle Mone-linked company showed pressure to award contracts to those with political connections

UK government wins £122m pandemic case against Michelle Mone-linked firm over faulty PPE

Opening the high-stakes trial in a workaday, office-like courtroom in June, the government’s barrister Paul Stanley KC sought to manage expectations for the media crowd in the folding seats at the back.

The case, he said, was not going to focus on the role of Michelle Mone, the Conservative peer who helped secure multimillion pound personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts for her husband’s company during the Covid pandemic.

Trial heard 25m surgical gowns supplied by PPE Medpro to protect NHS staff were unusable and could ‘seriously harm or kill patients’

VIP lanes and 25m faulty gowns: what PPE Medro trial reveals about Tory response to Covid

The government has won its legal claim against a company linked to the Conservative peer Michelle Mone for the return of millions of pounds paid for personal protective equipment during the Covid pandemic.

The Department of Health and Social Care sued the company, PPE Medpro, in December 2022, arguing that it had not complied with PPE laws to ensure that 25m surgical gowns it provided under a June 2020 government contract were sterile.

DHSC rejected as ‘unusable’ PPE supplied by company linked to Lord Chadlington, which later went bust

They were the lucrative deals that epitomised the “VIP lane” set up by Boris Johnson’s government during the Covid pandemic, which gave priority for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts to people with political connections.

Peter Gummer, a former PR boss who has been Tory peer Lord Chadlington since 1996, had smooth access at his fingertips. The erstwhile adviser to John Major has “close personal friendships with many senior Conservative party politicians”, he has said, and as president of the Witney constituency association in the Cotswolds is “close friends” with its most notable MP: David Cameron.

The prosecutions of 95 miners charged with riot and unlawful assembly in 1985 collapsed amid accusations of police officers lying in court

Government launches Orgreave inquiry, 40 years after clashes at miners’ strike

The confrontation at Orgreave: a visual timeline

Ministers have announced an inquiry into the violent policing at Orgreave and the collapsed prosecutions of 95 miners accused of offences there, 41 years after the infamous scenes of 18 June 1984. Here we set out some key details about why the inquiry has been set up and the crucial questions it may seek to answer.

Move follows decades of campaigning over violent policing and collapsed prosecutions at South Yorkshire coking plant

Explainer: Why now and what are the crucial questions it seeks to answer?

The confrontation at Orgreave: a visual timeline

More than four decades after the violent policing at Orgreave during the miners’ strike and a failed prosecution criticised as a police “frame up”, the government has established a statutory inquiry into the scandal.

The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, announced the inquiry having informed campaigners last Thursday at the site in South Yorkshire where the Orgreave coking plant was located.

Miner who was seen on TV being beaten by officer said he was not aware of report’s existence before it was destroyed

Documents destroyed by police relating to operations at Orgreave during the miners’ strike in 1984 are believed to include a report on a notorious incident in which an officer beat a man over the head with a truncheon.

In the ITV News at 10 report on the violent scenes at Orgreave, the officer, PC Martin of Northumbria police, was seen hitting the miner, Russell Broomhead, several times with his truncheon.