Michelle Mone admits she stands to benefit from £60m PPE profit
Michelle Mone has admitted that she stands to benefit from tens of millions of pounds of profit from personal protective equipment (PPE) sold to the UK government during the pandemic by a company led by her husband, Doug Barrowman.
In an interview with the BBC, the couple apologised for denying their role in the deal for more than three years.
But a defiant Baroness Mone said: "I don't honestly see there is a case to answer. I can't see what we have done wrong."
Having previously denied gaining directly from the contracts, which yielded profits of around £60m, the former Conservative peer admitted that she and her children were beneficiaries of financial trusts where the money is held.
She said "of course" she stands to gain, adding: "If my husband passes away before me, then I am a beneficiary, as well as his children and my children."
She said her life had been "destroyed" by allegations about their PPE profits, even though "we've only done one thing, which was lie to the press to say we weren't involved".
She said that was "not a crime" and added: "No-one deserves this."
Mr Barrowman said that Baroness Mone "was always going to benefit, and my family will benefit in due course… her family benefit, my family benefit".
"That's what you do when you are in a privileged position of making money," he said.
But Baroness Mone insisted that neither she nor her children had yet seen a penny of the money that is being held in the trust. Nor had the couple used the proceeds of the deal to buy a yacht, she said.
She also suggested she would not benefit if "God forbid, we get divorced after this show".
The businesswoman was made a Conservative peer by David Cameron but is no longer in the party.
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