Lawyer of businessman co-accused with David Mackintosh of concealing donations says politician DID know the money was coming from his client
David Mackintosh underwent a bruising cross examination this morning, with the legal teams of both his co-accused and the prosecution saying he was aware the money donated was from Howard Grossman
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By Sarah Ward
Former MP David Mackintosh knew his friend who was involved in the Sixfields stadium project was behind bogus donations to his election campaign fund, his co-accused’s legal team told the ongoing trial today.
In the third week of the political donations trial, the legal team for Mackintosh’s co-defendant Howard Grossman, 61, said the politician, who was leader of Northampton Borough Council at the time of the fake donations in 2014, did know the money was coming from Grossman.
Grossman, of Greenacres, Bushey, Middlesex, was a contractor appointed to manage the Sixfields development, which was given a £12m loan in July 2013 when Mackintosh was council leader.
Both men are accused of withholding information from a political party about the true source of donations. Both deny the charges, although Grossman admits being the source of the cash.
In an unexpected turn today, Grossman’s barrister Neil Hawes KC told Mackintosh, 44, while he stood on the witness stand, that it was his client’s position that he knew the money had come from Grossman. Yet he did not give details of a time, place or method by which Mackintosh had been made aware of the fact.
Cross examining, Mr Hawes asked Mackintosh: “Are you suggesting that he [Grossman] never once said that he would donate to your campaign?
Mackintosh replied: “No.”
Hawes said: “Not once? So he was going out of his way to bring other people to donate to your campaign. Is that right?
“Yes,” replied Mackintosh.
The KC continued: “I don't want to cause any blushes, but you were a politician and you know that donations are the lifeblood of campaigns. Did you never ask him to donate?
“No”, said Mackintosh.
Mr Hawes suggested: “So this generous man never offered to donate and you never asked?”
Mackintosh responded: “Yes.”
Grossman’s lawyer put to Mackintosh the reason he did not thank one of the £10,000 donors, Alan Mayfield, during email correspondence in the summer of 2014 was because he knew the real source of the money.
He said: “I’m going to suggest to you that you knew the source of the funds was Howard Grossman.”
Mackintosh replied: “No”
Mr Hawes said he also did not thank another £10,000 donor Gary Platt because again he ‘knew where the money had come from.’
Mackintosh, of Station Court, Northampton, who had worked for many years handling election campaigns for the Conservative Party, was personally involved in receiving information about the smaller £1,500 donations made to his own election campaign.
Mr Hawes asked why he did not think it was ‘odd’ that someone he did not know Sharad Bhimjiyani [Grossman’s bookkeeper] was asking others and helping them to make donations to his campaign.
The former MP replied that he did not think it was odd because after working on Tory party campaigns for many years he had learnt not to second guess why people choose to donate.
Crown prosecutor William Boyce KC gave Mackintosh a grilling for an hour, suggesting his evidence and claims he had no knowledge of where the money came from was ‘untenable and unbelievable’.
Mr Boyce said:
“In the space of a month or two you received three £10,000 donations and six £1,500 donations from nine donors, all from the same cluster area. Didn’t that cause you to be suspicious about what was going on?”
Mackintosh said his concern was whether the donations were compliant and legal and said it did not occur to him that all donations were from the same area.
Asked if he had known the money was coming from Grossman, what he would have done, he said he would have reported it to compliance.
Boyce said:
“Would you not expect to make reasonable steps to eliminate doubt about donations which are coming from people you had never heard of?”
Mackintosh replied: “I would expect the treasurer Suresh Patel to take those steps.”
Boyce suggested Mackintosh did not interrogate where the donations were coming from because ‘you knew what was going on’.
During his cross examination Mackintosh said:
“Obviously I’m very disappointed that this situation has arisen. I do feel that Suresh Patel shoulders some of that blame and I’m baffled why he is not in the court.”
Mr Boyce asked Mackintosh whether it was his strategy to ‘just blame Mr Patel’.
He also asked the former council leader:
“Do you agree that everywhere one looks there is a gap. ‘Grossman did not tell me.’ ‘Suresh Patel did not tell me.’ ‘I did not know.’ Everything seems to be happening in a vacuum.”
The prosecutor questioned why Grossman and Patel would cover up the true source of the donations without telling Mackintosh.
Mr Boyce said: “It is inexplicable, because you knew what was going on.”
Mackintosh told the jury he was ‘definitely misled by the people who were donating’.
Mr Boyce dismissed his claims of ignorance, citing his campaigning experience: “The person who was likely to smell a rat in this would be you, given your experience.
Mackintosh replied: “I didn't smell a rat.”
The prosecutor put to Mackintosh that: “You did know he [Grossman] was the source of funds from beginning to end.”
Mackintosh replied: “No”
The lawyer said: “Are you able to think of any reason he would conceal that from you?
Again Mackintosh said: “No”
Mr Boyce said: “Are you able to think of any reason Suresh Patel would conceal that from you?
“No.”
Mr Boyce said: “The person most vulnerable to adverse publicity would be you wouldn’t it?
“The person that, if the public got wind that you were receiving money from Howard Grossman, might cause a number of voters to look at it and think ‘this is murky’.
“No, that is not what happened,” Mackintosh said.
Mr Boyce asked: “Is that what happened in this case? You took the risk that adverse publicity would not leak out and you took Mr Grossman’s money.”
“No,” Mackintosh replied.
Four character witnesses were also read to the Warwick Crown Court from people who had worked with Mackintosh at the European Parliament in the early 2000s. He was described as a family person, hard working and honest.
Other new details heard in court were that Asda had been interested in developing on the Sixfields site during 2014 but that the supermarket’s parent company Walmart had withdrawn it.
The trial continues. As this is a live case please do not comment.
This report is instead of the usual Thursday morning post. NN Journal will be back in your inboxes again on Friday with our end of the week news brief.
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