The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
MPFiona Onasanya plottedwith herbrother to evade speeding charge, jury told
Fiona Onasanya trial at the Old Bailey begins
Peterborough MP Fiona Onasanya plotted with her brother to evade a speeding prosecution by claiming a Russian man had been behind the wheel, a court has heard.
Labour MP Onasanya is on trial at the Old Bailey facing one count of perverting the course of justice, which she denies.
At 10.03pm on July 24 last year, her Nissan Micra was allegedly caught by a speed camera on The Causeway near the village of Thorney in Peterborough.
The incident happened the week after the newly elected MP had broken up for the summer recess last year, jurors were told.
A Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) was returned, naming the driver of her car as Aleks Antipow.
But jurors were told on Tuesday that Mr Antipow was at home with his parents in Russia at the time.
The Russian had previously lived in Chesterton in Cambridge at a house rented by Onasanya and her brother Festus, the court heard.
The contact address and phone number given for him were also linked to Onasanya’s 33-year-old sibling, it was claimed.
Prosecutor David Jeremy QC said: “The purpose in providing the name of a real person as the driver, but providing a false address and telephone number that were connected to Festus Onasanya, was that Mr Antipow, while a real person, would remain untracea- ble to the police and so the true driver of Miss Onasanya’s car on the 24th July 2017 would escape prosecution.”
Festus Onasanya, of Chesterton, Cambridge, had deployed the same tactic when his car was caught by a speed camera on June 17 and August 23 last year, jurors heard.
Last Monday he pleaded guilty to three charges of perverting the course of justice, including one relating to the July 24 incident.
Mr Jeremy told jurors that Ms Onasanya was a busy person but had “trapped” herself in lies by adopting her brother’s methods of making a speeding prosecution disappear.
He said: “This case may have started as a case about an offence of speeding.
“It has become, as a result of the choices made by Miss Onasanya, a case about lying. Lying persistently and deliberately. Lying all the way to this court, maybe about lying in this court.
“Lying in a way that has had to be co-ordinated with lies told by her brother.
“Lying to avoid prosecution for a breach of the laws that apply, or should apply, to every single one of us whoever you may be.
“What a shame she did not tell the truth in the beginning.”
He also told the jury: “The question for you to decide in this case will be whether Festus Onasanya was acting alone when he perverted the course of justice in relation to the trapping of Miss Onasanya’s car on the 24th, or whether the two of them were acting together.”
Before sending jurors away on Tuesaday, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC told them: “I’m sure it does not need saying, but politics do not come into it. They cannot be a factor in the decision-making process at all.”
Ms Onasanya, from Peterborough, is a Labour whip, which means she enforces party discipline. Her trial is expected to go on for a week.
It was due to begin on Monday but was adjourned until the following day due to a number of legal submissions.
And yesterday it was again adjourned, this time until 10.15am this morning (Thursday, November 15).
Judge Hilliard explained to jurors that the “parties have drawn to my attention a matter during the break and it just needs checking from everybody’s point of view”.
The trial continues.
“I’m sure it does not need saying, but politics do not come into it.
Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC