A NEWSPAPER was justified in reporting that Michelle Mone’s husband made millions from tax avoidance schemes that led to suicides, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso) has ruled.

Businessman Douglas Barrowman had claimed a Daily Mail article from January 2024 headlined “How Baroness Bra’s (equally flashy) husband made £300m from dubious tax avoidance schemes that ruined thousands and led to two suicides” was inaccurate.

The piece reported that Barrowman was “behind a company that, for most of the 2010s, sold flawed tax schemes to mostly middle-class workers”.

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It added that when the scheme “unravelled”, “clients were left facing huge tax bills”, and it reported many were “financially ruined and at least two former customers of his firms have since committed suicide”.

The article also described Barrowman as a “roly-poly Scottish businessman” with “cocktail-sausage fingers” and “recently bleached teeth”.

Barrowman argued the deaths had come about because of HMRC’s conduct in recouping the funds, not because of the scheme itself or his actions.

But Ipso ruled that the article was not inaccurate because saying the scheme “led to” suicides did not apportion responsibility.

Douglas Barrowman and Michelle Mone (Image: BBC) Ipso said in its ruling: “While the committee noted the complainant disputed that he was responsible for the deaths of these individuals, this was not what the article claimed – it simply reported the schemes had 'led to' two suicides, a phrase which did not, in itself, apportion responsibility.

“Where the money was recouped by HMRC as a consequence of the two individuals’ participation in the scheme, it was not inaccurate to link the schemes to the death in the manner done so by the article. There was no breach of the code on this point.”

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Referring to the Editors’ Code of Practice, Ipso further said: “The committee appreciated the complainant found the article’s description of his physical appearance to be insulting. However, clause one [on accuracy] does not address issues of offence.

“Newspapers are free to publish what they choose provided the code is not otherwise breached.”