Now Boris’s blonde pal has £100k grant frozen
Ministers face ridicule over woeful checks on her firm
THE £100,000 grant to a firm run by Boris Johnson’s poledancing friend was frozen yesterday as the Government was ridiculed for woeful checks.
Officials apparently handed over taxpayers’ cash on the basis that the company was ‘British’ because it had a London phone number.
Yet anyone dialling it would have found the number is answered in California. And a minister said it had a British address – even though that was a dilapidated flat in Macclesfield rented out to somebody else.
Yesterday the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) froze the £100,000 grant to cyber firm Hacker House, owned by Mr Johnson’s ex-model friend Jennifer Arcuri, pending a ‘review’. Digital minister Matt Warman squirmed in the Commons as he outlined the feeble checks officials made, amid hoots of derision from MPs. But he insisted the review would be rigorous and the PM played no part in the decision to award the money.
Mr Johnson, 55, is facing demands to explain his relationship to American entrepreneur Miss Arcuri, 34, after she was given preferential access to trade missions when he was mayor of London and a series of public grants totalling more than £126,000.
Mr Johnson used to visit her Shoreditch apartment – which had a dancing pole – during the daytime for one-to-one ‘technology’ lessons.
Yesterday the Commons was told Mr Johnson should face a police probe if he does not cooperate with an inquiry launched by the Greater London Assembly into possible ‘misuse of public funds and conflicts of interest’.
Labour MP Wes Streeting said: ‘If he won’t, isn’t it only right that the Metropolitan Police should open an inquiry as to whether there’s been any misconduct in public office?’ Mr Warman replied there was no suggestion anyone would not cooperate.
Miss Arcuri’s firm of ‘ethical hackers’ was awarded the £100,000 grant earlier this year as part of a Government programme to improve cyber security. Answering an urgent question in the Commons, Mr Warman said only £47,000 had so far been paid and the remaining £53,000 would be frozen until the review was finished.
He said: ‘We treat any allegation of impropriety with the utmost seriousness’. He insisted: ‘The Prime Minister and his staff have had absolutely no role in the award of this grant.’
Lib Dem MP Layla Moran said the grant was only available to British businesses and asked what steps the Government had taken to check, given that Hacker House ‘is not based in the UK’. Mr Warman replied: ‘The officials have done the usual due diligence on this company. The address where it is based – this is a company that is based in Britain as far as Companies House is concerned. It is a company with a British phone number. We will review that but we have no reason to think there is anything untoward.’
When the Mail dialled the phone number yesterday, an American receptionist answered and confirmed: ‘I am in California.’ When asked if she could put the call through to someone in the London office, she said they were ‘a little tied up at the moment as it’s pretty early in the morning here’.
At the company’s registered address in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in a row of 1970s wooden maisonettes, a woman who answered the door said she had lived there for two years and never met Miss Arcuri. She said Matthew Hickey, the US businesswoman’s British husband and co-director of Hacker House, was a former tenant.
While the official address for the firm currently registered with Companies House is in Macclesfield, Mr Hickey told the Mail last night: ‘Just checked, we have categorically not given an address in Macclesfield on the application [for the DCMS grant].’ He added: ‘The company is UK in its operations and client base, but as cybersecurity is a global issue so too is our company and staff.’
The couple moved to California last year, and Mr Hickey has recently gained his Green Card, giving him permanent resident status in America.
Miss Arcuri’s family have insisted she was just good friends with Mr Johnson. Her stepfather John Jendrezejewski, 71, said: ‘No way would there have been a sexual relationship.’
Shadow Culture Secretary Tom Watson demanded to know if the PM had lobbied for her to win the grant. He said: ‘Does he understand that the trappings and privileges of power come with restrictions and restraints? Is he capable of restraining himself?’
Mr Johnson has repeatedly declined to answer questions about Miss Arcuri. She has said all the grants she received and trade mission trips she took part in were fairly awarded. Mr Hickey said it was disgusting to insinuate she had special favours ‘when we went through the [application] process fairly’. The Government said the work done by Hacker House was vital to the UK’s cyber security strategy.
‘Is he capable of restraining himself?’