Whistleblower who turned down £150k gagging clause and was ignored by Starmer says she will seek judicial review and take civil action after ‘perverse’ award for wrongful dismissal
Whistleblower Elaina Cohen has said she will seek a judicial review and civil action, after a tribunal judge awarded her only a net sum of £10,423 for being wrongfully dismissed by right-wing Labour MP Khalid Mahmood.
Cohen went public with allegations that Mahmood’s lover, who worked and still works for him, was using a ‘charity’ (now defunct) for domestic violence victims to exploit and abuse vulnerable Muslim victims. She received a total award of £11,729.99, but the tribunal judge reduced the payout under the Employment Protection (Recoupment of Benefits) Regulations 1996.
During the case, one of the victims told the tribunal – in evidence that neither Mahmood nor his legal team tried to challenge – that Mahmood’s staffer:
- blackmailed domestic violence victims into shoplifting and giving her their social security benefits
- made victims take speeding points on their licence that they did not incur
- sadistically abused victims
- made the chief executive of the charity suicidal by blackmailing her and taunting her
- targeted the victim on social media
- revealed details of the charity’s vulnerable ‘service users’ to others
- used her and other women from the now-defunct charity ‘for the private entertainment of important people’
- introduced one victim to a male friend who hurt the woman, ‘but she didn’t care’
- berated two victims for stealing the wrong jacket from a local department store
- made victims fund meals for local Labour politicians
- made victims ‘stalk’ Mahmood and report back on him
Cohen repeatedly informed Keir Starmer and Labour general secretary David Evans of what was happening, but the pair took no action, part of a pattern of cover-ups that saw Starmer shelter at least two alleged sex pests on his front bench – and one confirmed sex pest in a senior job – while claiming to be a ‘champion’ of women facing domestic violence.
In an email after the judgment today, copied to the West Midlands Chief Constable and to Labour general secretary Evans, Cohen told employment lawyer Julie-Rose Helling that she was ‘furious’ with the outcome and planning to appeal. to lodge a formal complaint with the judiciary and to legal action against the force and the Labour party:
As you can imagine I am furious at the judgment which I believe was personal .
I turned down £150k which would have shackled me with an NDA.
I am appealing the award .
However I also intend to make a formal complaint to the judiciary at the conduct of Judge Adkin which has been biased towards me from the onset.
I am being advised and considering and likely to now pursue civil action against the Respondent , West Midlands Police Simon Foster and Sir Keir Starmer.
I will not rest until justice has been served. This was a whistleblowing case of heinous crimes against vulnerable women which has been ignored .
“The police admitted to me that things had been covered up”
However, Cohen subsequently told Skwawkbox that she is planning to seek a full retrial, as well as threatening legal action against the local police that she says confirmed there had been a cover-up:
I will be seeking a full retrial to overturn this judgment which I have been legally told is perverse. The judge had already been found to have concluded that I was not threatened with dismissal for blowing the whistle when it was already in evidence before the tribunal. Maybe this time Keir Starmer will understand that covering up crime is unacceptable – and I don’t believe this is an isolated incident in Birmingham and elsewhere.
I turned down offers of £150,000 and then £110,000 to settle the case because they would have meant signing a non-disclosure agreement. I’m not letting this go.
The police admitted to me that things had been covered up, this is the equivalent of finding Trump innocent of 34 counts. If the West Midlands Police don’t take action, I’m going to start a civil action against them.
Ms Cohen recently resigned from the Labour party in protest at the repeated cover-ups and Starmer’s ‘protection of abusers and racists’.
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