'No evidence' Shahid Malik committed Covid fraud, trial told
Mr Malik, 58, who lost his Dewsbury seat in 2010 after serving one Parliamentary term, denies fraudulent trading, causing a public nuisance and money laundering.The trial previously heard he was paid "just under" £1.5m in dividends by August 2021 as part of his role as a shareholder in RT Diagnostics, which he founded alongside one of his co-defendants, former Calderdale councillor Faisal Shoukat.Mr Laidlaw told jurors: "There is nothing illegal about making a lot of money unless you have set up a business to commit fraud or the business you set up, to your knowledge, descends into a fraudulent business."The fact that Mr Malik made a great deal of money out of RT cannot possibly, or fairly, on its own be the basis of a guilty verdict."He would need to know that the business he had set up was a fraudulent business, or one to his knowledge that had become a business which was committing fraud."He went on to say that it was "absurd" to suggest the business was fraudulent from the outset, adding: "All the evidence points in the opposite direction".Th jury heard there was also "absolutely no evidence" of Mr Malik being told about the problems RT Diagnostics faced when it began trading."If those working at RT developed poor practices in [Mr Malik's] absence, he wasn't a party to those," said Mr Laidlaw."There is no evidence he encouraged anybody to behave in that way."
