At 2 o’clock on Tuesday morning, Peter Mandelson was photographed returning to his London home after nine hours in police custody.
Just two hours later, a punchy statement was released on his behalf by his blue-chip firm of lawyers Mishcon de Reya: ‘Peter Mandelson was arrested on Monday despite an agreement with the police that he would attend an interview next month on a voluntary basis.
‘The arrest was prompted by a baseless suggestion that he was planning to leave the country and take up permanent residence abroad. There is absolutely no truth whatsoever in any such suggestion.’
The statement concluded: ‘Peter Mandelson’s overriding priority is to cooperate with the police investigation... and to clear his name.’
Mishcon de Reya is just one of three firms of lawyers now involved in helping him try to do so. And none of them will come cheap.
The disgraced former Washington ambassador has also hired the London lawyer Ian Burton whose company BCL Solicitors has represented a number of controversial celebrity clients, not least retail tycoon Sir Philip Green and the late Mohamed Fayed.
Green was infamously dubbed the ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ by MPs investigating the collapse in 2015 of his former company, the retailer BHS, from which he had taken hundreds of millions of pounds in dividends, while allowing a vast pension deficit to build up before he sold the firm for £1.
Burton represented him in 2019 after a pilates instructor alleged the businessman touched her inappropriately.
Peter Mandelson was led away from his house in London by police officers on Monday
He would stay in police custody for nine hours before returning home at around 2 o'clock on Tuesday morning. Just two hours later, a punchy statement was released on his behalf by blue-chip firm of lawyers, Mishcon de Reya
Fayed was, of course, the predatory owner of Harrods who sexually abused countless female members of his staff, although Burton represented him over the car crash that killed his son Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997.
Mr Burton, a lawyer for more than 50 years, is regarded as one of the leading white-collar crime specialists in the country.
Earlier this month he visited Mandelson at his London home for more than three hours. He says that much of his work goes unseen by the public: ‘A lot of it is very much below the surface.
'The trick in our game is not to win the fight, but to avoid there being a fight.’
Lawyer number three is Adrian Darbishire KC, the Joint Head of Chambers at QEB Hollis Whiteman.
He, too, specialises in high-stakes white-collar crime as well as professional discipline, and has been pictured at Mandelson’s £7.5 million Regent’s Park home in recent days.
In 2019 Darbishire successfully represented Boris Johnson when the High Court rejected an attempt to prosecute him over claims he lied during the 2016 referendum campaign by saying the UK gave the EU £350million a week.
The then Tory leadership hopeful challenged a summons to attend court on three claims of misconduct in public office.
