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Five people are on trial at Bradford Crown Court for their roles in Halifax-based RT Diagnostics Ltd (RTD), which was set up at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic and earned £318,000 a day at the height of its operation in May and June 2021.
But RTD was removed from a list of government-approved suppliers in the wake of thousands of complaints from customers.
A jury heard how the staff at the premises, on Allerton Street, were producing up to 2,000 sampling kits a day – creating almost £6.7m in revenue in just three weeks – but that the site could not cope with the number of samples being returned.
RTD was also receiving thousands of complaints every day from people who had submitted PCR test swabs for examination.
Prosecutor Jonathan Sandiford KC said one worker created an online account in her own name and was surprised to receive a fake negative result a couple of weeks later despite never actually having submitted a sample for testing.
The certificate she received said the facility was accredited by the government-appointed certification body UKAS even though it was not.
Mr Sandiford told the court: “She said staff would use the lab information system to manually send out negative Covid certificates to customers without knowing the actual results of the tests.
“If a customer complained that they had not received their ‘fit to fly’ result whilst they were at the airport waiting to board, and if RTD had not received the samples, staff were told to inform the person that the result was negative and to send them a negative result.
“The whole point of having the test is to ensure you are not at risk of infecting [others].”
The court heard that RTD was “disorganised and chaotic”, that staff were untrained and often very young, and that they did not wear PPE or observe social distancing.
A courier who visited the Halifax site, which he described as appearing “derelict”, was surprised when a young male staff member threw the sample he had delivered into a cardboard box.
Mr Sandiford said: “He had visited a number of Covid testing laboratories, and the comparison caused him to question whether this was, in fact, a genuine laboratory.”
The court heard how key figures involved in the operation of RTD sought to blame others for its problems and the negative online reviews it was receiving from customers.
Logistics manager Paul Moore sent an email to Royal Mail in which he described its collections service as “a damaging joke” causing “irreparable damage” to RTD’s reputation and creating “anxiety” among customers
Mr Sandiford said: “He tried to push responsibility onto Royal Mail, saying: ‘I look forward to a detailed report including remedial action on the atrocious service we and our customers have had’.
“In fact, Mr Moore’s email to Royal Mail contained a number of demonstrable lies.”
During June and July 2021 RTD underwent a number of inspections by Trading Standards and Calderdale Council’s environmental health team.
Around the same time, it had been removed from the government list of approved suppliers and Moore set up what was described as “a back-up plan” called Avery Labs.
But in setting out his qualifications in a new application for government accreditation, Moore failed to mention his close association with RTD.
Addressing the jury, Mr Sandiford said: “You might want to ask yourselves a question: why is it when Mr Moore was asked to put down his relevant experience that he chose to omit the fact that he was still the logistics manager at RTD – just around the corner from where Avery Labs was based?
“Why would he omit that? It would be the most relevant experience for somebody making this application.”
Shahid Malik, 57, of Colne Road, Burnley, Faisal Shoukat, 38, of Savile Park, Halifax, Paul Moore, 56, of Plover Street, Burnley, Lynn Connell, 64, of Waggon Farm, Ash Hall, Ripponden, and Dr Alexander Zarneh, 70, of Wood Lane, Hipperholme, Halifax, all plead not guilty to public nuisance and fraudulent trading.
Malik and Shaukat also plead not guilty to money laundering related to RT Diagnostics Ltd.
Malik was the MP for Dewsbury between 2005 and 2010 and was appointed Justice Minister in the Labour government in 2008.
The trial, listed to last 14 weeks, continues.
