Four new names on cash-for-honours list

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Ruth Turner: Dawn police raid

Police have evidence that Downing Street considered giving peerages to eight of the 12 businessmen who bankrolled Labour's 2005 general election campaign, it has emerged.

This is twice as many as had been previously thought.

Detectives investigating the 'cash-for-honours' affair knew that Sir David Garrard, Barry Townsley, Chai Patel and Sir Gulam Noon were put forward for peerages.

But sources close to the inquiry yesterday claimed that four more donors - biotechnology entrepreneur Sir Christopher Evans, former Capita executive chairman Rod Aldridge, broker Derek Tullett and Andrew Rosenfeld, chairman of Minerva - were on an internal Downing Street list drawn up by Tony Blair's aides.

Sources also claimed that Sir Christopher's diaries detail a series of meetings with Lord Levy, Mr Blair's chief fundraiser, in 2004 to discuss a peerage.

These two pieces of evidence are understood to have formed the core of the 16-month police investigation, which Scotland Yard believed until recently would lead to charges against Downing Street aides.

But the investigation was effectively halted on July 4 when a leading government barrister, David Perry QC, ruled that the diary was not admissible as evidence.

He also said police must have evidence of an 'unambiguous agreement' showing that financial backers gave money only on the explicit understanding that they would be honoured in return.

Last week the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed that no one would face criminal charges. Senior CPS lawyer Carmen Dowd said there was insufficient evidence to put anyone on trial for selling honours or an alleged cover-up attempt.

The police dossier outlining the allegations could be made public, however. Assistant Commissioner John Yates is ready to hand his inquiry's key findings to MPs on the Commons Public Administration Committee.

The evidence is reported to include details of at least three drafts of the working peerage list drawn up by Downing Street aides in September 2005. Police obtained the documents last summer and Mr Yates later told MPs he had uncovered 'significant and valuable' evidence.

But a backlash against the Yates team was under way yesterday with the wife of a former Downing Street chief of staff accusing Scotland Yard of using 'Gestapo tactics'.

Sarah Helm, a journalist and author who has written extensively about the Second World War and Nazi Germany, is married to Jonathan Powell, a key Blair aide.

She wrote of her fury at the decision to arrest her husband's colleague Ruth Turner in a dawn raid on her home in January.

Writing in The Observer, Miss Helm said: 'I know one shouldn't make these comparisons, but I was writing about Nazi Germany right then and I couldn't help but think: Gestapo tactics! Pick on the vulnerable, preferably a single woman, living alone. No matter that you may have nothing on her that will ultimately stand up in court - give her a scare.

'As if she were some street criminal, ready to scarper, Ruth's home was swooped upon by Yates's men and she was forced to dress in the presence of a female police officer. Then there was a tip-off to the press.'

Miss Helm's comments are thought to reflect the anger of some near the top of the party - Peter Mandelson was quoted yesterday as saying the police used media leaks to ' undermine public trust in the Government'.

Meanwhile Sir Christopher has accused Labour's leadership of abandoning him and other suspects. He said some senior figures did not 'stand up for their principles' and regarded the suspects as ' dispensable pawns'.

Sir Christopher acknowledged he discussed the possibility of becoming a working Labour peer on two or three occasions with party figures including Lord Levy. But he insisted the prospect was never linked to his donations and loans to the party.

He told the Sunday Telegraph: 'I didn't try to buy a peerage and Lord Levy didn't try to sell me one. Some people could have come forward and made that crystal clear.'

 

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