Apsana Begum: Labour MP cleared of fraudulent housing claims

A Labour MP has been cleared in court of making fraudulent housing claims.

Apsana Begum, 31, who represents the constituency of Poplar and Limehouse, was accused of three counts of making dishonest applications for council homes to Tower Hamlets Council.

She told Snaresbrook Crown Court her "controlling" husband was in charge of her finances and she was "shocked" to discover the paperwork was in her name.

Ms Begum said the accusations had been "driven by malicious intent".

The Labour MP collapsed and wept in the dock after the verdicts were returned.

In a statement, Ms Begum said the trial "caused me great distress and damage to my reputation".

She said: "As a survivor of domestic abuse facing these vexatious charges, the last 18 months of false accusations, online sexist, racist and Islamophobic abuse, and threats to my safety have been exceedingly difficult."

Ms Begum said she would be "consulting and considering" on how to ensure "something like this does not happen again to anyone else".

The court heard Ms Begum, who won her seat in the 2019 general election, had applied to go on the council's social housing register on 22 July 2011.

Her charges related to separate periods between 18 January and 21 May 2013, 21 May 2013 and 23 March 2014, and 28 October 2015 and 21 March 2016.

Ms Begum was alleged to have attempted to gain social housing in the first period by claiming she lived in an overcrowded three-bedroom house, making her a higher priority in the social housing queue.

However, according to a social housing application made in 2009 by Ms Begum's aunt, the house had four bedrooms.

Ms Begum maintained there had only ever been three bedrooms in the house and that she had never had her own bedroom while living there.

She could not explain why her family members had said there were four bedrooms.

She later moved into a different property with her then-partner Ehtashamul Haque without informing the council, where she lived for more than two years.

Ms Begum claims Mr Haque was "controlling and coercive" and took over her finances.

During this period, bids for housing were made in Ms Begum's name. She denied making the bids.

"I'm shocked to see these records," she told the court.

Jurors found Ms Begum not guilty of all charges after the judge gave a majority direction.