Labour MP for Peterborough, Fiona Onasanya, 35, is on trial at the Old Bailey
A Labour MP accused of lying to police about a speeding offence behaved like a politician when she was ‘flexible with the truth’, a court heard.
Fiona Onasanya, 35, allegedly weaved a ‘succession of lies over many months’ after her Nissan Micra was caught doing 41mph in a 30mph zone on The Causeway in Thorney, Cambridgeshire.
The Peterborough MP claims she does not know who was behind the wheel of her car when it was caught speeding shortly after 10pm on 24 July 2017.
Yesterday she accused her younger sibling Festus, 33, of forging her signature and going behind her back to make it look like she was not driving the car at the time.
In dramatic evidence to the Old Bailey, the trained solicitor said she was completely unaware about her brother’s criminal behaviour and was shocked to learn of his plan.
Today in his closing speech David Jeremy, QC, prosecuting, said Onasanya has built a ‘dishonest contrivance’ by ‘taking a scalpel’ to the evidence and cutting out the bits which were uncomfortable for her.
He said she responded to questions in a way ‘sometimes attributed to politicians’.
Mr Jeremy told jurors: ‘I doubt that you will derive a great deal of pleasure from having to decide this case. It should of course have never come to this: a trial at the Old Bailey.
‘Ms Onasanya is undoubtedly a talented, hard working public servant. You should make every allowance for everything that you have heard in her favour.’
He said the MP has shown an ‘absolute determination and fluency of presentation, skill in avoiding giving a simple answer to a direct question and a highly flexible relationship with the truth.’
Mr Jeremy said he recognised Onasanya would have been ‘very busy’ with work at the time she received the NIP. ‘Her inbox was no doubt full as was her post bag,’ he said.
‘But while every allowance should be made for everything that you have heard about her in her favour, the prosecution’s case is that, at the end of the day, these are excuses for what she has done.
‘And what she has done she alone is responsible for – starting with the very bad choice she made when she received that Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP).’
Mr Jeremy said many people might consider pretending someone else had been driving their car if it was caught speeding and they received that ‘annoying piece of paper through the post’.
Onasanya (pictured left and right) confirmed that her mother Paulina Scott, brother Festus and friends and family could have had access to her car
But he continued: ‘It is one thing to think about it and another thing to do it.’
He said Onasanya’s alleged lie was ‘not just one aberration’ and ‘she could have changed her case at any time’.
‘It was a succession of lies over many months,’ he said.
The barrister said Onasanya was ‘not one of life’s unfortunates’ and enjoys significant ‘privilege’ and ‘status’ in her position as an MP.
He told jurors: ‘She knew from 24 July 2017 who was driving that car.’
Her story has been ‘exposed for what it is: a dishonest contrivance’, he said.
‘She has sat down with the prosecution evidence and has taken a scalpel to it when necessary, cutting out the bits which would be uncomfortable for her.’
Mr Jeremy said she had worked as a commercial property lawyer, well accustomed to reading documents, which meant her failure to understand the NIP was ‘puzzling’.
The Rt Hon Nicholas Brown, MP for Newcastle upon Tyne East and the Labour Party’s chief whip, said in a statement read to jurors by the defence: ‘Fiona is a decent, outgoing character.
‘She is bright, able and committed to her job.’
He described her as ‘honesty, trustworthy and reliable’.
Onasanya, from Peterborough, denies perverting the course of justice.
Her younger brother Festus, 33, has admitted three charges of perverting the course of justice in relation to supplying false details while nominating a driver on three separate Notices of Intended Prosecution (NIP) for speeding offences – including the one sent to his sister last August.
Yesterday jurors at the Old Bailey heard Onasanya, 35, accuse her younger sibling Festus, 33, of forging her signature and going behind her back to make it look like she was not driving the car at the time.
Miss Onasanya, who as a Labour whip is in charge of party discipline, claimed she could not remember any details about what she was doing when her Nissan Micra was caught doing 41mph in a 30mph zone last year.
During cross-examination, she faced claims from the prosecution that she was in fact behind the wheel when the camera was triggered and was also using her phone at the time.
When she was sent a notice of intended prosecution (NIP) following the speeding offence in July last year, police received a response suggesting a man called Aleks Antipow was driving.
But a police investigation later found that Mr Antipow, a lodger at a property rented by the Onasanya siblings, was visiting his parents abroad at the time.
A still taken from a speeding camera shows the Nissan Micra, belonging to Labour MP Fiona Onasanya, as it is caught speeding on July 24 last year
The Labour MP acknowledged for the first time yesterday that her brother filled in the fake details on the police letter and signed it on her behalf.
Miss Onasanya told the court she had a close relationship with her brother, speaking to him several times a week and attending church together with him on most Sundays.
But she said the relationship has been ‘strained’ since both were charged with perverting the course of justice earlier this year.
‘There is a lot that I didn’t know about him,’ she said. ‘The person I believed he was is turning out to be someone different to the person I am seeing in evidence.
‘I am his sister but things he has done I do not agree with and do not think it is acceptable.’
The MP added: ‘I think no-one is above making mistakes. He is my only brother. It is just him and my mum. I just don’t understand why someone would do something like that. I would never have approved this.’
Mr Onasanya has pleaded guilty to three counts of perverting the course of justice, involving both the speeding offence concerning her car and two other offences.
His older sister, seen as a rising star in the Labour party, insisted that she had not known about her brother’s previous ban for drink-driving or the nine penalty points on his driving licence.
She said the pair did not discuss the speeding offence in detail, claiming that her brother simply told her that it had been ‘sorted out’.
But prosecutor David Jeremy QC said: ‘There are not really hard feelings between you, you are just upset that you have been caught.’
Describing her defence as a ‘charade’, he added: ‘Your defence has not been an exercise in disclosing the truth, it has been an exercise in evasion and concealing the truth.’
Fiona Onasanya (left) and her brother Festus Onasanya (right) pictured arriving at the Old Bailey last week
Miss Onasanya denied claims by the prosecutor that ‘the truth has given way to your professional ambition’, claiming that a speeding penalty would have had no bearing on her career as an MP.
She admitted her brother had ‘effectively set her up’ by refusing to tell her that he had submitted false details for the speeding offence before they were quizzed by police January.
During cross-examination, Miss Onasanya said that she could not remember her movements on the day of the offence, claiming she was so busy that her assistants had to remind her to eat.
Asked whether she was curious about who was driving the car when it was caught speeding in Thorney, Cambridgeshire, and she received an NIP nine days after the offence, she said: ‘No.’
The MP said she had assumed she was working in Westminster at the time of the offence on July 24 last year, despite the House of Commons having risen for summer recess at the time.
The trial continues.
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