"Baroness" of "Bethnal Green" reportedly facing police investigation over empty address she has been claiming £££££ for

The first update on the DAILY MAIL GROUP web site, as at 1704 Hrs UK Time Sunday 3 May 2009:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1176837/Labour-peer-claims-100-000-vacant-flat-said-home.html

Labour peer 'claims £100,000 on vacant flat she said was her home'
By DAN NEWLING
Last updated at 5:04 PM on 03rd May 2009

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Baroness Uddin has been claiming expenses on a 'unoccupied' flat in Kent

A Labour peer is facing a possible police investigation for fraud after she claimed £100,000 in expenses for a flat she appears not to have lived in.

Baroness Uddin, who is Britain's first female Muslim peer, received the money by claiming that the deserted flat in Maidstone, Kent was her 'main home'.

Doing so meant the mother-of-five was able to claim nearly £30,000 a year towards the cost of staying London whilst she attended the House of Lords.

However, residents in all the building's other flats say that in the four years since the flat was bought, they have never seen the sari-wearing Baroness there.

And a plumber who entered the flat just nine days ago described it as being 'uninhabitable' - covered in dust with just an old mattress on the floor to sleep on.

In contrast, neighbours at the Baroness' other property - a three-storey family house in Wapping, east London - said she is regularly seen coming and going.

The Wapping house is where the Baroness brought up her children; where she is registered to vote; where she is fondly known by neighbours as 'auntie'; where she is registered as a company director and in an area the peer calls 'her backyard'.

It is also just four miles from the Palace of Westminster.

However, the 49-year-old former deputy leader of London's Tower Hamlets council has told the Lords' expenses authorities that it is merely her 'second address'.

By doing so she was, during the financial year to March 2008, able to claim £29,600 in overnight accommodation allowance, the Sunday Times revealed.

Assuming the peer claimed the same amount every year since buying the Maidstone flat in 2005, she would have earned over £100,000.

The scandal is just the latest to involve a politician who appears to have manipulated Parliamentary expenses for financial gain.

A series of recent exposes have revealed how MPs have pocketed millions of pounds by falsely claiming to live in homes outside London.

Today opposition politicians called for the Baroness' claims to be investigated by both the police and Parliament.

Scottish Nationalist MP Angus Robertson, who has campaigned for stricter expenses controls, said: 'I will be writing to the police and the House of Lords authorities asking them to investigate.'

And Liberal Democrat frontbencher Lord Oakeshott said: 'An empty property can't be a peer's main residence. The Lords authorities must check the facts of this case and investigate.'


'Main home': The flat in Maistone, Kent, which neighbours say has lain empty

The Bangladesh-born baroness - who was ennobled by Tony Blair - has insisted that she has done no wrong and has instructed the libel law firm Carter Ruck to represent her.

Since the Baroness became aware of the Sunday Times' investigation, her erstwhile neighbours in Maidstone have reported an unusual flurry of activity.

They report how last weekend, two women in saris helped move furniture into the hitherto deserted flat. And this Friday evening the Baroness was seen arriving at the flat. She spent the night there then left again 11 hours later.

Land Registry records show that Manzila Pola Uddin bought the two-bedroom flat on the first floor of a newly-built block in central Maidstone for £155,000 in September 2005.

Though smart, it is less than 100 yards from a noisy flyover road, which one has to cross to get to the nearest shop: a large Sainsbury's supermarket.

If the recent flurry of activity at the property is designed to prove she lives there, yesterday witnesses queued up to provide evidence to the contrary.

Residents from all five of the other flats in the same, recently-built, block have all said that they have never seen the Baroness there.

One of them, Yvonne Adams, said: 'I can't emphasis enough how no one has lived there. They just haven't. I know that for a fact.'


'Second address': The east London house where Baroness Uddin is regularly seen

Mrs Adams told how she had looked through the flat's windows and said: 'There has never been a stick of furniture in there.'

Matthew Hollis, who lives in the flat above, said: 'I don't think anyone does live there. I've never seen anyone in there.'

Mark Ryan, a Folkstone-based plumber who worked on the flat's boiler nine days ago said: 'It looked like they were just moving in. They told me they were just moving in.'

He went on: 'It looked like someone had not paid the rent and done a runner. You could tell that no-one was living there and hadn't done for a very long time.

'It was uninhabitable. It was very dusty. There was an old mattress on the floor of one bedroom. It wasn't made up.'

Moshahidur Rahman, 55, who lives in the house next to the Baroness' block of flats told how he would have known had the peer lived nearby.

He said: 'I've seen her on TV many times. She is very well known in the Bangladeshi community. I would know if she lived there and I have never seen her here. I spend a lot of time around here. But I've not heard of Baroness Uddin being seen.'

However, in startling contrast, neighbours at the Baroness' other home in Wapping, east London, yesterday appeared much more familiar with the peer.

Next-door neighbour Fozlu Miah, 28, said: 'I see her most days through the window, coming in and going out. I sometimes talk to her... I call her auntie.'

And another neighbour Rafique Uddin (no relation), whose daughter is friends with the Baroness' daughter, said: 'We all moved in at the same time. I don't know anything about a house in Kent.' She added: 'The mum [the Baroness] is going in and out. They are continuously living here as far as I know.'

Another women, who lives opposite the peer in London, said: 'I know the Baroness. She has lived here for years. Her family are always coming and going. She is busy with work so I don't see her everyday, but I do see her here at least twice a week.'

She added: 'She has never mentioned any house in Kent to me. I would say this here in Wapping is her main home. I am surprised she would say she wasn't.'

Other evidence linking the Baroness with the Wapping home is the fact that every time she has registered as a director of a company, she has given her London address. The Companies Act says directors must give their 'usual address'.

Also the Baroness' Facebook page says she lives in London, and her personal website describes her 'backyard' as being the east end of London which she writes 'has been my home for over 30 years'.

When approached during her brief stay in Maidstone this weekend, the Baroness refused the opportunity to allow a journalist into the flat to check it was being lived in.

Instead she said over the intercom: 'I'm telling you, this is a fully-furnished home. You will just have to accept that. I'm telling you the truth.'

A statement released by her solicitors read: 'I do not believe that I have done anything wrong or breached any House of Lords rules. Should the relevant House of Lords authorities wish to investigate the matter I will, of course, cooperate fully.'

The statement added: 'The Wapping house is rented while I own the property in Maidstone.

'The Maidstone property is furnished and I strongly deny that I have never lived there. Indeed I have stayed there regularly since buying it.'

The Lords' accommodation allowance is available to any peer 'whose main residence is outside greater London and who maintains a residence in London for the purpose of attending sittings of the House'.

Although there is no official definition of a 'main residence' in the rules, Mary Morgan, director of public information at the Lords said: 'A member will know what his main residence is.

'It's where they live.....for the purposes of claiming expenses it's where they travel to and from.'




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