The house sale document that could nail Angela Rayner (2024)

Beleaguered Angela Rayner's attempts to ride out her two-homes row were dealt a significant blow last night after the emergence of a key document signed by her former neighbour.

Sylvia Hampson, who has previously called the Labour Deputy Leader a 'f***ing liar' for insisting that she lived apart from her then husband, which might have enabled her to avoid paying a capital gains tax bill, has confirmed that she was a legal witness to the sale of Ms Rayner's home.

Ms Rayner asked Mrs Hampson to sign the document, unearthed by The Mail on Sunday, for what she claimed was her 'principal property' – even though her neighbour lived a mile away, next door to the Labour no. 2's then husband, where she says she wasn't living.

Ms Rayner's decision to ask the 83-year-old to sign the document will raise questions about why she didn't call on a neighbour near the house where she says she did live.

Mrs Hampson has given evidence to Greater Manchester Police, who are investigating 'multiple allegations' against Ms Rayner, including potential breaches of electoral law, a failure to pay capital gains tax and the false claim of a single-occupancy council-tax discount.

Ms Rayner has said she would step down if she is found to have committed a criminal offence by registering the former council house in Vicarage Road as her home, rather than her husband's property a mile away in Lowndes Lane for five years after they married in 2010.

If Vicarage Road was not her main residence, she could be liable for tax on the £48,500 she made on its sale, exposing her to a liability of up to £3,500.

Now this newspaper has established the extent to which Mrs Hampson, a Lowndes Lane resident, was aware of Ms Rayner's living arrangements. Examination of the 'Transfer of Whole Registered Title' (TR1), which passed Ms Rayner's ownership of the Vicarage Road house to its new buyer in 2015, was witnessed by Mrs Hampson – rather than a resident of Vicarage Road.

Before her police interview, Mrs Hampson told The Mail on Sunday that Ms Rayner was living at Lowndes Lane 'full-time from about 2009 or 2010'. She said: 'If she is saying she didn't live there she is a f***ing liar. She definitely lived at that house.

'She can't say she didn't live there. I would swear on the Bible to that.'

Mrs Hampson was interviewed on Friday by detectives, who took a statement from her.

Last night, the former cotton mill worker, who has been living at her house for the past 60 years, looked at the TR1 form and confirmed that it was her signature and home address.

She said about her police interview: 'I spoke to two detectives. She [Ms Rayner] was living here from 2010. She definitely lived there from 2010 and she was still there in 2014.

'She was bloody living here. I used to see her go off in her car and then come back in the night time. If that's not living here, what is it?'

The pensioner recalls Ms Rayner's eldest son Ryan living in the loft bedroom and making a lot of noise on his drumkit.

She said: 'My son came home from work one night and he asked Ryan to stop it.'

Greater Manchester Police are aware of the TR1 form. The development comes as Ms Rayner faces intense pressure in the Commons over the issue this week. On Wednesday she will stand in for Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions, when she is likely to face a series of jibes about the issue from Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden.

Later that afternoon, Jim Harra, the chief executive of HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), will be grilled by the powerful Treasury Select Committee, which is expected to discuss the tax issues raised by the Rayner case. Another neighbour has told police about the time that Ms Rayner described herself as the 'landlady' of the Vicarage Road house.

Chris Hinett, 64, a Vicarage Road resident, told two detectives he intervened in a row Ms Rayner had in early 2015 with another neighbour, whose son had accidentally smashed her property's living room window with his football.

Mr Hinett said he saw Ms Rayner sat in her car outside the boy's family home as if she was 'casing it', causing him to go out to ask why she was staring at the house suspiciously.

After he started videoing her on his phone, he said: 'She wound the window down and said, 'What have you done?'. She said if I don't delete the photo she would report me to police for threatening behaviour and intimidation.

'She said she'd been involved in a number of cases and as north-west rep of Unison, her reputation was upstanding and her evidence would be believed more than mine.

'She said that she was the landlady [of the property] and it was her brother [Darren Bowen, 46] who lived there and he wasn't strong enough to deal with the likes of us.'

In a separate development, a senior Labour activist has revealed that she quit the party in protest because Ms Rayner 'cheated' during her election campaign.

Sylvia Harrop accused Ms Rayner of breaking party rules by beginning her campaign two months before her rivals in the run up to the 2015 General Election.

At the time, Ms Rayner was bidding to become MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, and Mrs Harrop was secretary of the constituency Labour Party.

Mrs Harrop said: 'To my mind, Angela cheated and I was disgusted with the Labour Party so I left. Angela was determined to get to the top and she did it by cheating, initially.'

Last week, it emerged that one of Ms Rayner's most senior former aides had also contacted Greater Manchester Police to tell them the MP had not told the 'truth' about her two-homes row.

Matt Finnegan, Ms Rayner's former chief adviser, gave a written statement where he stated her actual home was at Lowndes Lane and not at Vicarage Road.

He said that he had visited Ms Rayner at the Lowndes Lane property in the summer of 2014, around the time she became the Labour candidate for Ashton-under-Lyne.

A Labour spokesman said: 'Angela has been clear that she will cooperate with any investigation. We do not plan to give a running commentary.

'We remain completely confident that Angela has complied with the rules at all times and it's now appropriate to let the police do their work.'

A Labour source said that Ms Rayner had been legitimately selected as a Labour candidate.

Greater Manchester Police declined to comment.