Former MP Shahid Malik Cleared in Covid Testing Fraud Case

Shahid Malik, the 58-year-old former Labour MP for Dewsbury, has been found not guilty of fraudulent trading, causing a public nuisance and money laundering in connection with RT Diagnostics, the Covid-19 testing company he co-founded.

The verdicts were returned at Bradford Crown Court by a judge sitting alone. Jurors had begun deliberations in March and were discharged in April after an allegation of jury tampering, leaving the judge to decide the remaining verdicts The Guardian.

Malik was one of five people charged relating to the company. Faisal Shoukat, aged 39, the pharmacist and former Labour councillor who started RT Diagnostics with Malik in March 2021, was found guilty of fraudulent trading, causing a public nuisance and money laundering. The three other defendants were acquitted of the charges they faced.

Malik represented Dewsbury between 2005 and 2010 and served as a minister in three departments in Gordon Brown's government. He later moved into business facilitation and investment activity, the role his defence placed at the centre of this case.

RT Diagnostics was established in March 2021 as the UK government's test-and-trace system was expanding. Prosecutors described it as a cash cow set up to exploit that demand. The company made £6.67m in three weeks from premises in Halifax described in court as inadequate, and issued false negative Covid-19 results to customers. Fraudulent trading here means running a business dishonestly for profit, while causing a public nuisance means an act that endangers the wider public.

Paul Moore, aged 57, who held a senior role in RT Diagnostics and had been Malik's office manager when Malik was an MP, was cleared of fraudulent trading and causing a public nuisance. Lynn Connell, aged 64, a manager at the firm, and Alexander Zarneh, aged 70, its clinical director, were also cleared of fraudulent trading and causing a public nuisance.

Malik's defence, led by Jonathan Laidlaw KC, argued his involvement was "very limited indeed," limited to putting up money and making introductions, like a backer who funds a venture but does not run daily operations. That account was previewed earlier when the court heard Malik had no controlling or managerial responsibility in the firm BBC. Malik did not give evidence in his own defence. Character evidence heard in February described him as being of 'highest integrity' BBC.

Testimony during the earlier jury phase depicted disorder inside the operation. The court heard that teenagers 'ran amok' at the testing firm BBC, part of a wider prosecution case about lack of clinical control and unsuitable facilities.

The broader context here is the distinction the court has drawn between ownership and operational control. The prosecution case linked all five defendants to a single enterprise that profited rapidly while delivering unreliable results. The verdicts separate Shoukat, as founder-operator, from Malik and the other three, whose alleged roles did not, in the judge's assessment, meet the criminal threshold.

Looking at what this means for pandemic-era fraud litigation, the result shows how difficult attribution remains when testing businesses scaled quickly through informal networks of investors, introducers and clinically titled staff. Conviction for one principal alongside acquittals for associates leaves the regulatory failure intact but narrows criminal responsibility to those found to have directed the fraud.