Rayner’s brother refuses to answer questions after claims she was his ‘landlady’

Angela Rayner’s brother has refused to answer questions over the deputy Labour leader’s former council home as he was pictured for the first time since the scandal broke.

Darren Bowen, 46, said he had “no comment” to make when approached about his involvement in the row before getting in his car and driving off.

It has been claimed that, in the early 2010s, Mr Bowen was living at a property on Vicarage Road in Stockport, owned by his sister, and that he referred to her as his “landlady”.

Ms Rayner has insisted she lived at the property full-time and it was her primary residence.

Greater Manchester Police is investigating whether she was in fact living at her husband’s home on nearby Lowndes Lane and if so, whether she was liable to pay capital gains tax on the 2015 sale of the Vicarage Road house.

The force is also looking at whether she could have committed an offence by putting an incorrect address on the electoral roll.

Ms Rayner is expected to claim that she was not required to pay capital gains tax when she sold the house in 2015 after writing off the levy with a kitchen extension.

Planning applications show that enhancements included a “new opening to enlarge [the] kitchen” as well as a “new replacement door and window” and the installation of a gas fire.

A Labour source said last week: “Angela has consistently said that the house she owned was her main home and that no capital gains tax was payable on the sale.

“Various tax experts have already set out potential grounds for capital gains tax to not be applicable to the sale but it would not be appropriate to comment on baseless speculation while an investigation is ongoing.”

Mr Bowen, who now lives around a half-hour drive away from Stockport, shares his new detached home with his partner.

When initially approached by The Telegraph earlier this week, his partner denied that he was living there despite images on social media showing the couple moving into the property in 2022.

On Thursday, he left the property shortly after 7.30am, before declining to comment on the claims about his sister.

In February, when the scandal first emerged, Ms Rayner insisted on X, formerly Twitter, that her Vicarage Road home was her primary residence.

She said: “[My husband and I] mutually decided to maintain our existing residences to reflect our circumstances. Every family is different, but it worked for us and we brought up our boys in a caring environment, surrounded by love.

“A wide network of friends and family were also there to support us, including my brother. He’d served in Iraq and was a dab hand at DIY.”

People living in Vicarage Road have said the only person they recall living at the house before Ms Rayner sold it was Mr Bowen.

They have spoken of an incident about a year before the house was sold for £127,500, when a teenager living in the street accidentally kicked a football through a window.

The boy’s mother, who did not wish to be named, said: “Her brother Darren was living there on his own at that point. There definitely weren’t any children there.”

“Another neighbour had it [the window] boarded up, and Darren was very reasonable about it all. But he said he needed to speak to his landlady, who turned out to be Angela Rayner. I went to the same school as her, so I knew who she was, but I’d certainly never seen her in our street before.

“She said she needed to get involved because her brother wasn’t strong enough to stand up for himself. She came round banging on the door, demanding we pay around £250 for it to be repaired. When we refused, she threatened to take us to court.”

It comes as the new owners of the Vicarage Road address, who did not wish to be named, said that the street was still divided over whether Ms Rayner did indeed live at the property.

They said they personally believed she did live there, adding: “She obviously lived here, there’s no denying that. We still get her news - some of her old letters and stuff.

“She was obviously registered to this address, she lived here, we still receive some of her post,” the resident said.

“People knew that she lived here, there’s no denying that. Other people might say otherwise.”

Ms Rayner has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and accused Tory ministers of “obsessing” over her living arrangements at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.