Internet boss fined for e-mail spying
AN INTERNET pioneer who uncovered the e-mails that forced Dame Shirley Porter to pay £12.3 million to end the homes-for-votes scandal was fined yesterday for hacking into the messages.
Clifford Stanford, the founder of Demon Internet, was plotting a boardroom takeover of an electronic data firm and intercepted e-mails to and from Dame Shirley’s son, John.
The contents revealed that Dame Shirley had access to many millions of pounds despite her claim to have assets of only £300,000 when faced with a £42 million surcharge for vote-rigging. Details of the e-mails were passed to the media and Westminster City Council. Soon after £25 million of assets were frozen, Dame Shirley offered to pay £12.3 million to settle the case. Dame Shirley, as Tory leader of Westminster council during the 1980s, had overseen the selling of council homes in marginal wards to people thought likely to vote Conservative, while the homeless were placed in asbestos-ridden tower blocks in safe Labour wards.
