CAROL Vorderman has posted a savage three word response after a firm linked to her ex-pal Michelle Mone was ordered to pay £122million.
Baroness Mone is facing financial ruin after her husband’s company was ordered to pay the Government millions in damages.
Paul Edwards – The SunCarol Vorderman and Michelle Mone together at Cheltenham Festival, 2012[/caption]
InstagramCarol Vorderman posted a savage three word response after a firm linked to her ex-pal Michelle Mone was ordered to pay £122million[/caption]
InstagramShe hailed the judge’s verdict after months of slamming her former friend[/caption]
Posting on her Instagram account, Voderman put a screenshot of a news article on the verdict with the caption: “Yes at last.”
“I’ve fought for years to highlight the VIP PPE Lane. Today is a good day.”
The TV presenter has been repeatedly calling out under-fire Mone in recent months.
The glamorous pair used to be close, regularly having “great fun” on nights out together before Mone married billionaire Doug Barrowman.
But Vorderman fell out with the scandal-hit lingerie tycoon.
Appearing on Good Morning Britain previously, she claimed: “I knew her many years ago for about 18 months and dropped her as a friend because I realised she just how much she lied.
“This was way before she went into the political arena and we all know what happened there.”
Host Adil Ray stepped in to say: “We should add Michelle Mone denies any allegations of corruption.”
Vorderman hit back, insisting: “Yes of corruption but she’s admitted obviously that her husband ran the PPE Medpro. That’s really where it started.”
Administrators are preparing to take over PPE Medpro after the High Court ruled it had supplied faulty personal protective equipment during Covid in a breach of contract.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves called for Mone, who lobbied for husband Doug Barrowman’s firm to get highly lucrative contracts, to quit the House of Lords.
She also hailed the verdict, adding: “We want our money back. We are getting our money back.”
However it emerged PPE Medpro has put itself into administration with assets of around £660,000.
The High Court ruled that the firm failed to prove whether its surgical gowns — destined for NHS workers in the grip of a terrifying pandemic — had undergone a validated sterilisation process.
Mone, 53, later hit out, claiming she and Barrowman, 60, were victims of an establishment stitch-up who have been “scapegoated over the PPE scandal”.
GettyBaroness Mone arrives in the House of Lords before the State Opening Of Parliament at Houses of Parliament on June 21, 2017[/caption]
PABaroness Mone is facing financial ruin after her husband’s company was ordered to pay the Government millions in damages[/caption]
The Department of Health and Social Care awarded a £122million gowns contract to PPE Medpro after Mone first approached the then Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove in May 2020.
The company was also given another contract worth more than £80million to supply face masks — both via a so-called “VIP lane”.
Some 25million gowns, made in China, were delivered by PPE Medpro in August and October 2020.
But just before Christmas that year, the Government claimed that tests had found “a number of the gowns were not sterile”.
It led to legal action, with Medpro arguing it had complied with the contract and the gowns were sterile.
Paul Stanley KC, representing the Government, told the High Court trial in June that of 140 gowns tested, 103 failed.
Mone, who with her husband did not give evidence, was said to have been “active” in discussions which led to the awarding of the contracts.
When the scandal first broke, she initially denied gaining any financial advantage.
Then, in a car-crash BBC interview in December 2023, she admitted that “of course” she would benefit.
It was later reported that Barrowman and Mone — who last year sold their £6.8million yacht, called Lady M — had received £65million.
PPE Medpro recently announced it had net assets of just £666,025.
It applied for administrators to take over on Tuesday, the day before the High Court verdict.
A long-running investigation into PPE Medpro by the National Crime Agency is still ongoing, along with a House of Lords inquiry.
The Government doled out £10billion of contracts for faulty PPE as the country was crippled by the pandemic.
A “hit squad” of investigators has been brought in by the Government to recover funds unlawfully lost.
Mone, who received an OBE in 2010 for her contribution to business, is currently on a leave of absence from the House of Lords, where she was made a life peer in 2015.
A National Crime Agency spokesperson said: “The NCA opened an investigation in May 2021 into suspected criminal offences committed in the procurement of PPE contracts by PPE Medpro.
“This ongoing investigation remains a priority for the agency.”
RexThe TV presenter has been repeatedly calling out under-fire Mone in recent months[/caption]
The glamorous pair used to be close, regularly having ‘great fun’ on nights outGetty – Contributor
FROM RAGS TO RICHES
BORN into poverty in Glasgow’s East End, Michelle Mone’s rags to riches rise saw her become one of Britain’s best known business leaders with a seat in the House of Lords.
The future Baroness Mone of Mayfair was raised in a one bedroom home where her childhood was marked by hardship.
Her younger brother died when he was eight and she left school with no qualifications aged 15 to help support her family after her dad, Duncan, lost the use of his legs through cancer.
Mone’s early career included stints as model and then a rapid rise to become head of marketing for Labatt Brewing in Scotland. But her high-flying business career really took off in the 1990s
Frustrated by an uncomfortable cleavage-enhancing bra, she created her own design. In 1996, she co-founded MJM International with her thenhusband, Michael Mone, and in 1999 they launched the Ultimo bra at Selfridges in London.
It was an immediate success. Mone became a celebrated media figure, known for her grit and self-promotion. In 2011, she and Michael, who had three kids, divorced.
She bought him out of the business before selling a majority stake and moving into politics. She swapped her allegiance from Labour to the Tories in 2009 and PM David Cameron made her a life peer in 2015
Mone got an OBE for her contribution to business in 2010 and starred on TV’s The Apprentice — You’re Fired.
She met billionaire Barrowman at a business dinner in 2016, and the couple wed in a lavish ceremony at her Isle of Man mansion in November 2020.
Their business downfall began in November 2021 with VIP lane revelations.
A £122million lawsuit was launched against her PPE firm in December 2022.
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