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PORTER PAY OFF ‘A DEAL’
‘Time to move on’ claims Westminster finance chief
WESTMINSTER Council washed its hands of the Homes for Votes scandal yesterday (Thursday) after an independent watchdog found it had acted “reasonably” in clawing back a fraction of Dame Shirley Porter’s missing millions.
The report from the Audit Commission describes the council’s final settlement with the disgraced former Tory peer as a “good deal”.
The council’s finance chief and Deputy Leader Colin Barrow said the council had finally been “vindicated” and it was time to “move on”.
Porter, the Tesco heiress, sold council homes on the cheap in an exercise in power-crazed gerrymandering that secured a Conservative majority in Westminster.
She was in 1997 ordered to pay a £27 million surcharge.
But in 2004 the council settled for just £12.3 million – at the expense of taxpayers in Westminster.
The settlement sparked a legal objection to the council’s 2004 accounts that concluded yesterday.
District Auditor Les Kidner’s 36-page report found the legal challenge was “misguided and simply wrong”.
He said: “The £12.3 million was a good deal. It is time to bring this matter to a close and move on from the past.”
The Homes for Votes saga dates back to the 1980s when Porter, then leader of Westminster council, was exposed for selling hundreds of homes some for as little as 85p.
In 1987 it was revealed that she sold three cemeteries for 15p.
The sales were in 1996 deemed illegal and Porter became liable for the loss to the council. The decision was upheld in an appeal court in 1997 but it took seven years for the council to settle – by which time her missing millions had been hidden in offshore accounts.
She claimed in 2002 that her assets were worth just £300,000. But in 2004 paid £12.3 million sparking a police investigation that is ongoing.
Dame Shirley returned from self-imposed exile in Israel to Westminster in 2006 to rent a mansion in Mayfair. |
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