Michelle Mone's husband Doug Barrowman cleared after Spanish fraud trial
- Published
Michelle Mone and her husband, Doug Barrowman, spoke to the BBC in an exclusive interview last year
The husband of Baroness Michelle Mone has been cleared of any wrongdoing following a Spanish embezzlement and tax fraud trial.
Doug Barrowman and six other British businessmen had been on trial on charges linked to a 2008 cable factory purchase.
They have now been acquitted of all charges by three judges in Santander.
Mr Barrowman had been warned he faced up to five-and-a-half years in prison if convicted.
Assets controlled by Mr Barrowman and his wife remain frozen in the UK as part of a separate investigation.
PPE Medpro, a company led by Mr Barrowman, is under investigation by UK authorities.
It was awarded contracts worth more than £200m to supply PPE to the NHS through a so-called VIP lane.
The company is also being sued by the Department for Health and Social Care.
The Financial Times reported that Crown Prosecution restrictions had been placed over £75m worth of assets, including a townhouse in Belgravia, properties in Glasgow, an estate on the Isle of Man and numerous bank accounts.
The couple said at the time the freezing of assets would allow them "to begin the task of proving their innocence more quickly".
"If, God forbid, my husband passes away before me, then I am a beneficiary, as well as his children and my children"
The Spanish misappropriation and tax fraud charges against Mr Barrowman and his co-accused were linked to a 2008 cable factory purchase.
Mr Barrowman, 59, was one of the two largest shareholders in the now-defunct company B3 Cable Solutions Spain which bought the plant.
The prosecution case focused on a £5.35m payment by the cable firm to a "linked" UK company called Axis Ventura in July 2008.
A public prosecutor alleged in court that Mr Barrowman and five of his associates took a six-figure sum through an invoice for consultancy services which were said to have been inflated or never provided.
The prosecution also alleged all seven defendants had defrauded the Spanish Treasury by claiming tax relief on part of the six-figure "consultancy fee" in B3 Cable's 2009 annual return.
Mr Barrowman admitted to playing a "senior" role in the £16m purchase of the French-owned cable factory in Maliano near Santander when he gave evidence at his trial in January.
Offshore account
He told the court he had resigned as an Axis Ventura director and sold his shares in the company two months before the factory purchase went through.
The other men tried alongside Glasgow-born Mr Barrowman were Paul Ruocco, Mark Price Williams, David Powell, Timothy Eve, Michael Walton and Stephen Ellis.
The three judges released their ruling in a 26-page written document.
They said there was "abundant documentation" relating to negotiations between the intermediary company Axis and the cable factory's former owners, making it clear services were provided.
And although they described the sum paid to Axis as "disproportionate" given the factory purchase cost - and described the operation as "strange" and "hardly compatible" with B3 Cable's interests - they said that did not necessarily imply any criminal wrongdoing.
Of the alleged crime against the Spanish Treasury, they said that although the tax relief claimed could be considered very high, it was "acceptable."
They also ruled it had not been proved that money paid to Axis had ended up in an offshore account as prosecutors alleged.
Baroness Mone is currently on a House of Lords leave of absence amid the ongoing UK investigation.
She opted to stay away from her husband's trial at Santander's Audiencia Provincial court.
Last year, the couple admitted in a BBC interview that they had lied to journalists about their involvement with the PPE Medpro firm.
But lingerie tycoon Baroness Mone said that was "not a crime".
She has since told the Sunday Times that she felt like she was being treated like the former Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, after her bank accounts were frozen under the Proceeds of Crime Act.