Ex-councillor guilty of running sham Covid-19 testing lab

A former councillor has been found guilty of running a bogus coronavirus testing laboratory during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Faisal Shoukat, who served on Calderdale Council, was convicted of causing public nuisance, fraudulent trading and money laundering after a trial at Bradford Crown Court.

Four other people on trial alongside Shoukat, former justice minister Shahid Malik, Lynn Connell, Paul Moore and Dr Alexander Zarneh, were cleared of all charges.

The verdicts were returned by His Honour Judge Chris Smith after the jury was discharged in April during their deliberations, when one member of the panel was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

During the trial, prosecutors said 39-year-old Shoukat - who was a Labour councillor at the time - was the "controlling mind" of RT Diagnostics, based in Halifax.

The court heard that test kits sent out to customers - sourced from Turkey - did not meet the required standards in the UK.

It was also heard the lab had returned a "suspiciously low" number of positive tests .

Between May and July 2021 it reported 123,104 tests, but only 45 of these were positive, with 123,058 showing as negative and one indeterminate.

A video published by The Sun newspaper in July of that year alleged tests were being dumped in a side room.

The video also showed the firm's laboratory at Park Works to be in poor condition, with rubbish strewn across the floor, its ceiling exposed and bin bags dumped outside.

Medical safety inspectors described the site on Lister Lane as a "building site" and said there was evidence of people living there.

Delivering his verdicts, Judge Smith criticised the company's "cavalier" and "careless" approach to the accreditation process, which would allow it to conduct testing.

Shoukat, a pharmacist, told the trial he was paid around £1.5m in shares from the firm.

Mr Malik, who cried after he was cleared of wrongdoing, was also paid a similar amount as a co-director, the court heard.

He was not involved in the day-to-day running of the company, and lived outside of the UK for part of its short-lived tenure.

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