29.11.2024 14:40
The UK’s Labour Party Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has resigned from her position due to a fraud conviction from 2013. Haigh admitted to continuing to use a stolen company phone. At the time of the incident, Haigh was working at the insurance company Aviva, where she provided the police with a list of stolen items and reported that the company phone had also been stolen. However, she did not inform the police that she still had the phone in her possession. This led to her conviction for fraud.
The UK Transport Secretary Louise Haigh resigned after a past fraud conviction came to light. The 37-year-old Labour minister admitted that despite reporting her company phone as stolen in 2013, she continued to use the phone.
At the time of the incident, Haigh, who was working at Aviva insurance company, had provided the police with a list of items stolen from her bag and reported that her company phone had also been stolen. However, the phone was in her possession, and she did not inform the police about this. As a result, Haigh was convicted of fraud and stated that she regretted her mistake.
A former police officer, Haigh had informed party leader Keir Starmer about her conviction when she was appointed Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary in 2020. In her resignation letter, she acknowledged that failing to inform her employer in a timely manner was a mistake.
Conservative Party Chairman Nigel Huddleston criticized the Prime Minister for appointing a "fraudster" who has been convicted. According to sources from Sky News, Haigh had made a false declaration to obtain a new phone, which led to her losing her job.