Bra tycoon Baroness Michelle Mone has lost a court battle over dodgy Covid kits with a linked firm ordered to pay back £121million.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) brought the case – claiming PPE Medpro provided 25million “faulty”, non-sterile gowns.
The company, a consortium led by Mone’s husband, businessman Doug Barrowman, was awarded the government contract after she recommended it to ministers.
The High Court today ruled the gowns did not comply with the requirement of having a validated process to demonstrate sterility, and so now PPE Medpro have been ordered to pay £121.9m by October 15.
While both Mone and Barrowman deny any wrongdoing, claiming they are the “scapegoat”
A Channel 5 The Michelle Mone Scandal: Where Did Our Money Go? unpacked the scandal in early 2025.
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It discussed how Michelle Mone and her husband Doug Barrowman allegedly helped themselves to government money for a controversial PPE contract during the pandemic.
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Who is Michelle Mone?
Michelle Mone is a businesswoman and the founder of lingerie company Ultimo.
Born in Glasgow on October 8, 1971, Michelle left school with no qualifications at the age of 15 and went on to launch her own business ventures in diet pills, fake tan and cryptocurrency.
She became a Conservative life peer in 2015 and is now known as Baroness Mone.
Michelle has been married twice.
She met Michael Mone when she was 17 and they married in 1989.
Her first daughter, Rebecca, was born in August 1992, followed by son Declan in April 1996.
Youngest Bethany was born on July 1, 1999, and took part in Channel 4 show Born Famous.
Michael and Michelle divorced in 2011 and she went on to marry billionaire Doug Barrowman in November 2022.
What is the Michelle Mone Scandal?
In 2020, reporters began asking questions about Baroness Mone’s apparent links to the company named PPE Medpro.
A year later the government revealed that Michelle had referred PPE Medpro via the VIP lane system, and the company was subsequently awarded two contracts worth £200m.
It wasn’t long before Baroness Mone faced allegations that she had profited from the business – a claim she initially denied.
As a result Michelle took a leave of absence from the House of Lords in 2022 in order to “clear her name of the allegations that have been unjustly levelled against her”.
The controversial contracts were investigated by the National Crime Agency (NCA).
Michelle denied having any “role or function” in the company for almost two years, with lawyers previously saying she is “not connected to PPE Medpro in any capacity”.
In November 2023, Michelle and husband Doug, confirmed for the first time they were involved in the company.
Doug had chaired and led the operation for PPE Medpro.
Michelle admitted she regretted denying her connection to the PPE firm in a YouTube documentary funded by PPE Medpro, she said: “I regret not saying to the press straight away, ‘yes I am involved’.
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“The government knew I was involved and the emergency team, the cabinet team, knew I was involved – the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), knew I was involved, the NHS – all of them.
“The legal team advised myself and my husband not to comment and not to say of my involvement in PPE Medpro.”
She added: “I wanted the NHS to succeed, I wanted a win-win situation for everyone.
“Both myself and my husband declared their interests and if they had any issue with that whatsoever, when they knew of my involvement and my husband’s involvement, why did they ever give the contracts in the first place?
“They must have been satisfied – they knew everything.”
Profits worth £60million were put into a trust which Michelle was listed as a beneficiary of.
She admitted in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg that she would benefit if her husband died before her.
What was the problem with the PPE?
Not only were the government criticised for giving preferential treatment to PPE Medpro, the PPE didn’t meet medical standards.
The 25 million PPE gowns were rejected after a technical inspection.
The gowns were required to meet the British Standard for the sterilisation of medical devices or a “technical equivalent”.
Who is Michelle Mone’s husband Doug Barrowman?
Douglas Alan Barrowman is married to Michelle Mone.
The couple were married in November 2022 on the Isle of Man, where Doug is a resident and operates his financial services empire from.
The Scottish businessman founded and is the chairman of Knox Group of Companies, which he has assets under management and administration worth almost £3 billion, according to LinkedIn.
This is not the first time Doug has been in the public eye.
He and six other British businessmen had been on trial on charges linked to a 2008 cable factory purchase that led to accusations of tax fraud.
In March 2024, Barrowman was cleared of any wrongdoing following a Spanish embezzlement and tax fraud trial.
