Porter pays £12m to end vote scandal

TESCO heiress Dame Shirley Porter has agreed to pay a record £12 million to the local council she once led for her role in the so called 'homes for votes' scandal.

The settlement, by far the largest penalty paid by a local councillor, ends an extraordinary 15-year legal battle between the disgraced Tory and Westminster City Council.

Dame Shirley owed the council £42 million in surcharges, interest and costs following the gerrymandering scandal in the Eighties when council homes were sold off to potential Tory voters in marginal wards to boost the party's election prospects.

Under the deal agreed yesterday she will pay back less than a third of the sum owed. It also paves the way for the 73-year-old Dame Shirley to return from Israel where she lives in self-imposed exile.

Last night she remained unrepentant. 'I have decided it is time to bring this case to an end, despite my belief that I did nothing wrong,' she said.

A few months ago Dame Shirley was protesting she had assets of just £300,000. But council investigators tracked down and froze assets worth £9 million based in the British Virgin Islands.

Labour MP Peter Bradley, a former Westminster councillor, said last night: 'I am amazed. Every petty felon in the country will now feel that they should have a 75% discount off their jail sentence.'