Former Labour MP ran ‘shoddy and inadequate’ Covid-19 testing lab, trial told

A former Labour minister ran a “shoddy and inadequate” Covid-19 testing centre which undermined the NHS test and trace system during the pandemic, prosecutors have told a jury.

Shahid Malik is one of five people accused of taking advantage of the Government’s need to scale up testing for the virus in 2021 by setting up a laboratory that did not meet UK standards.

Malik, 57, who became the MP for Dewsbury in 2005 and served as a justice minister and communities minister before losing his seat in 2010, is accused of fraudulent trading, causing a public nuisance and money laundering.

Faisal Shoukat, 37, is charged with the same three offences. Lynn Connell, 64, Paul Moore, 56, and Alexander Zarneh, 70, are accused of fraudulent trading and causing a public nuisance.

Jurors at Bradford Crown Court heard that as the third national lockdown was ending in March 2021, the Government was looking to expand its test and trace system by increasing the number of laboratories offering PCR testing.

The defendants are accused of “taking advantage” of that process with an “inadequate and non-compliant” testing company called RT Diagnostics, which made £6.67 million in three weeks, the court heard.

Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford KC said contacts in Turkey were used to import inadequate components for sampling kits which were sent out to consumers but did not meet UK standards.

He told jurors the laboratory, in Halifax, West Yorkshire, was set up in “shoddy and inadequate premises” with holes in the walls and ceilings, rubbish strewn around and even homeless people living on the floor above.

Jurors heard the company employed “numerous young people who had little or no training in the handling of Covid-19 samples” and set them to work with no social distancing and no personal protective equipment.

In contrast to a glossy website which “falsely” described the laboratory as modern, purpose-built and fully accredited, Mr Sandiford said RT Diagnostics never completed the accreditation process.

The prosecutor said there was evidence of the company providing false negative results and that it “generated a suspiciously low number of positive results”.

Just 45 out of more than 123,000 test results submitted to the national database between May and July 2021 were reported to be positive, the court heard.

Mr Sandiford said RT Diagnostics failed to properly handle test samples and sold far more PCR sample collection kits to consumers that it was able to process.

“Because of that, some of the test samples that were returned by consumers to the laboratory were not tested but simply dumped in a room on the premises,” he told jurors.

“People who complained enough got told their result was negative, when in fact their sample had not been tested.”

He said this meant people who ought to have been self-isolating were going out in public, believing they were free from infection when they were not.

Jurors were told a second company was created “with a deceptively similar name” which was used to open a bank account into which all the money generated by RT Diagnostics was deposited.

Mr Sandiford said that in June and July 2021 things started to go wrong for the business – consumer complaints were on the rise and it was removed from the Government’s list of PCR test suppliers.

He told the court that after The Sun published an article about the working practices at the laboratory, an inspection found that it was non-compliant and would need to have a full assessment to obtain full accreditation and get back on the Government’s list.

Mr Sandiford said that rather than trying to fix the problems with RT Diagnostics, Malik and Shoukat set up a third company which would be fronted by Moore, a Kirklees councillor, and “pick up where RT Diagnostics left off”.

He told jurors this was to “resurrect the cash cow” that had made more than £300,000 a day.

“Those who were behind RT Diagnostics knew that they never had a hope of being able to pass an assessment,” Mr Sandiford said.

“The all important thing was to get themselves back on that Gov.uk list where customers could find them and buy tests from them.”

Malik, of Burnley, Lancashire, Shoukat, of Halifax, West Yorkshire, Connell, of Ripponden, West Yorkshire, Moore, of Burnley, and Zarneh, of Halifax, all deny the charges and the trial continues.