‘Baroness Bra’ Michelle Mone’s billionaire husband CLOSED in Spanish embezzlement and tax fraud trial

MICHELLE Mone’s husband found out today he was acquitted of any wrongdoing after his trial on Spanish embezzlement and tax fraud charges.

Scottish billionaire businessman Doug Barrowman, 58, faced up to five and a half years in prison after being accused of taking part in a multi-million tax evasion scheme.

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But the threat of prison hangs over his head was lifted today after learning he had been acquitted of all charges.

The other six British businessmen who sat next to the bra tycoon’s husband in the dock were also declared innocent by the three judges.

The trial took place in a court in the Spanish port city of Santander for six days at the end of January and beginning of February.

The embezzlement and tax fraud charges were related to the 2008 purchase of a cable factory.

Barrowman was one of the two largest shareholders in their now defunct company B3 Cable Solutions Spain, which bought the factory.

The prosecution case focused on a payment of £5.3 million in July 2008 by the cable firm to a “linked” British company called Axis Ventura, founded by Barrowman, founded and run by many of the defendants.

A prosecutor alleged in court that Barrowman and five of his associates pocketed the six-figure sum through an invoice for consulting services that she said were inflated or never provided.

She also alleged that all seven defendants, including Barrowman, defrauded the Spanish treasury by claiming tax relief on part of the six-figure “consultancy fee” in B3 Cable’s 2009 annual return.

Barrowman admitted playing a “senior” role in the £16m purchase of the French-owned cable factory at Maliano, near Santander, when he gave evidence on day two of the trial.

He told the court he had resigned as director of Axis Ventura and sold his shares in the company two months before the factory purchase went through.

Many of the defendants used their time on the stand to refute claims made by the prosecutor.

The other men who tried alongside Glasgow-born Barrowman were Paul Ruocco, Mark Price Williams, David Powell, Timothy Eve, Michael Walton and Stephen Ellis.

Ellis is the only one of the seven whose embezzlement charges were dropped before the end of the trial.

The three judges announced their ruling in a 26-page written document made public late today.

They said there was “abundant documentation” relating to negotiations between the intermediary company Axis and the cable factory’s former owners, which clearly showed services were being provided.

They described the amount paid to Axis as “disproportionate” given the purchase costs of the factory and described the operation as “strange” and “hardly compatible” with B3 Cable’s interests.

However, they said this does not necessarily imply criminal wrongdoing.

They added: “The prosecutor’s accusation was specifically based on the non-existence of services. The possibility of criminal consideration of an excessive or disproportionate payment has not been raised.”

Regarding the alleged crime against the Spanish treasury, they said that although the claimed tax reduction could be considered very high, it was ‘acceptable’.

They also ruled that it had not been proven that the money paid to Axis had ended up in an offshore account, as prosecutors claimed.

It was not immediately clear last night whether the prosecutors who brought the men to trial would appeal the acquittal.

Lingerie magnate Michelle Mone, currently on leave from the House of Lords amid an ongoing UK investigation into alleged Covid PPE fraud involving her and her husband, chose to stay away from the trial at Audiencia provincial court in Santander .

The controversial couple had £75 million worth of assets frozen or seized under a court order obtained by the CPS as part of the National Crime Agency’s investigation into PPE Medpro, a company led by Barrowman.

The Spanish trial, which ended early last month, marked a new chapter in a long-running saga in which Barrowman and his business partners were initially cleared of blame over the October 2012 bankruptcy of the cable factory they bought with bank financing in May 2008. .

A commercial court ruled in September 2016 that the bankruptcy, which cost 213 employees their jobs, was “accidental” and not “culpable”.

Barrowman and his business partners were charged following a separate criminal investigation that began before the civil court acquittal.

The Scot, whose prosecutors wanted three years in prison if convicted of embezzlement and two and a half years if found guilty of tax crimes, did not answer questions from his own lawyer until he took the stand.

He and his co-defendants were allowed to return to Britain after they were all questioned on day two of the trial, which ended on February 8 before the judges retired to consider their verdicts.

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