Attorney-General Baroness Scotland: I was duped by illegal cleaner

The most senior law officer in the country took to the witness stand today, claiming that she was duped into employing an illegal immigrant from Tonga as her cleaner.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the Attorney-General, said she bitterly regretted not making copies of the documents Loloahi Tapui presented to her before she took up her role as housekeeper and dog walker at Lady Scotland's West London home.

The Tongan is accused of using a false document to earn money. Southwark Crown Court was told that she had paid a Russian friend £180 for a false visa stamp, to cover up the fact she was an "illegal over-stayer" whose right to work in the UK had long since expired.

The case brings further embarrassment for Lady Scotland, whose failure to take copies confirming Ms Tapui’s immigration status led her to fall foul of the very measures – the 2006 Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act – that she helped to put on the statute book as a Home Office Minister.

Giving evidence under her married name, Patricia Mawhinney, the Attorney-General said she had been deceived by Ms Tapui.

She said: "I didn’t take copies and it is something I bitterly regret now. Frankly, I believed her.

"It was a tough couple of months. There had been a number of bereavements in my family and it came at a difficult time."

She said that Ms Tapui had reassured her that there were no skeletons in the closet that would compromise her position as chief legal adviser to the Government.

"I had told her that it was very important that, because I was a lawyer, whoever works for me, should be entitled to work in the country. I had been quite careful about that," she told the court.

Lady Scotland said she had not revealed her senior position until the day after Ms Tapui's first interview, when the cleaner appeared to return with the relevant documents the minister had requested.

"She [Ms Tapui] said, 'I know who you are.' I was quite taken aback, as I had not used my title. She said she had been told by her husband, who recognised me.

"She said, 'Don’t worry. I understand your need for security and need to do everything correctly'."

As she recalled the conversation, the minister shook her head.

Lady Scotland admitted that she had suspected that the Tongan’s marriage to a Serbian-born solicitor 13 years her senior might have been bogus, but was reassured when she saw confirmation the couple had been married by a clergyman she knew locally.

Ms Tapui, 27, came to the UK in February 2003 and was allowed to remain for three years legally.

After her legal right to remain in the UK expired, she worked for eight months, earning £6 an hour, at the Chiswick home that Lady Scotland shares with her husband, two teenage sons, and their dog.

Opening the prosecution, Duncan Penny said that the baroness later confronted Tapui, 27, about her immigration status, after being contacted by a tabloid newspaper. Ms Tapui confessed at that point to lying in her application to become a cleaner.

"The circumstances arose from the manner in which Tapui gained employment as a domestic cleaner for a woman called Patricia Mawhinney, who is also properly entitled Baroness Scotland, Her Majesty's Attorney-General for England and Wales.

"When she offered herself for employment in January last year she acted dishonestly in making a representation to the baroness that she was entitled to work in the UK.

"A revealing insight of her dishonesty lies in the fact that when her true status came to light and she was confronted about it by the baroness, she admitted she had lied during the application process about the whereabouts of her passport."

Ms Tapui, of Sutton Court Road, Chiswick, West London, denies dishonestly making a false representation that she was entitled to work in the UK.

The Tongan, who is on bail, also denies possessing a false identity document with intent and fraud.

She also denies intending to use the false identity document "for establishing, ascertaining or verifying registrable facts about herself", including her identity and residential status.

The hearing continues.

(Published by Times Online- April 6, 2010)