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.

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 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 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.”

In 2008, building regulations show a kitchen extension was built at the property. It is understood Ms Rayner could potentially use the cost of the addition to offset any potential capital gains tax she may have owed.

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.”

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