Shamed peer Michelle Mone was under pressure on Wednesday night to pay back £122m the taxpayer wasted on useless Covid kit.
After a crushing defeat in the High Court there were also demands for the high life-loving lingerie tycoon, who rose to fame as founder of Ultimo bras, to be booted out of the House of Lords.
The angry demands escalated after ‘Baroness Bra’, ennobled by David Cameron in 2015, was dubbed a ‘big gun’ in the deal that saw the Department of Health buy 25 million sterile surgical gowns for the NHS at the start of the pandemic.
The judge ruled the Chinese-made gowns, sought in desperation by the Government as the world went into lockdown, were faulty and that PPE Medpro, the firm linked to Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman, should pay back the full £122m value of the contract.
On the eve of the judgement, however, Baroness Mone, 53, implied that PPE Medpro would be unable to pay, with ‘little funds to make a settlement by itself’, the firm effectively folding with just £660,000 in assets.
