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PRESSURE was last night mounting on Prime Minister Gordon Brown as the row over donations to the Labour Party intensified.

It emerged last night that a fourth person from the North-East had been used as an intermediary for donations to the party from Newcastle property developer David Abrahams.

But Janet Dunn said she and her husband knew nothing about the donation made in her name - a payment of £25,000 in January 2003, according to the Electoral Commission.

Speaking at her home in Ponteland, near Newcastle, Mrs Dunn said: "I heard last night (Monday) that this money had been put in my name and I knew nothing about it."

When asked if the money came out of her account, Mrs Dunn said: "Not at all. I never ever wrote a cheque. I am not happy."

Her husband, Anthony, who said he had occasionally worked for Mr Abrahams, said: "He's used our name. It's a silly sort of thing to do. It's just strange."

He said he would ask the developer for an explanation.

Mr Brown was yesterday forced to hand back more than £650,000 in donations after admitting that they had not been "lawfully declared".

As the funding row threatened to engulf his Government, Mr Brown said that the way the payments had been made by Mr Abrahams through a series of intermediaries had been "completely unacceptable".

He said he had known nothing about the arrangements and that he was appointing a retired judge and a former bishop to advise the party on changes to its procedures.

But it emerged that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had been in contact with the Electoral Commission, which is investigating the affair.

Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman was also under fire after she admitted accepting £5,000 from one of Mr Abrahams' intermediaries, Janet Kidd.

Mrs Harman said last night she was returning the money. She had insisted that she had not been aware of the arrangement with Mr Abrahams when she accepted the donation for her deputy leadership campaign.

Meanwhile, the Government said that a £60m North-East business park dragged into the crisis was given the go-ahead in the proper way.

The Department for Transport (DfT) mounted a defence of procedures after it was revealed Mr Abrahams was behind the 540-acre Durham Green Business Park.

It poured scorn on suggestions that Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander played any part

in the Highways Agency lifting its block to the project last year.

Controversy arose after it was alleged that in the year before the ban was lifted, Mr Abrahams donated £199,000 to Labour through intermediaries.

But the Department for Transport said the block was lifted without Mr Alexander's involvement after more information was provided about the impact of the park on traffic levels on the nearby A1(M).

A spokesman for Mr Alexander, who is now International Development Secretary and on a visit to Tanzania, said: "Douglas had not heard of David Abrahams before this weekend's coverage.

"To the best of his knowledge, he has never met him. Douglas was, thus, also unaware that Mr Abrahams was a Labour Party donor, or of any arrangement he had to donate to the party."

Durham City MP Roberta Blackman-Woods, whose constituency includes the business park, said its approval had provoked no controversy.

The Labour MP, who said she had never talked to Mr Abrahams, said: "Nobody has ever brought to my attention any issue about the business park.

"It is a really important development, both because of the number of jobs to be created and because of its location, close to the A1(M)."

Carol Woods, the Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate for Durham City and a member of the city council cabinet, said: "I think it is important that we do get this business park.

"I was not on the development control committee and did not see the planning application - but I know he did not give us any money.''

Fraser Reynolds, the leader of the Lib Dem-controlled city council, which gave the business park planning permission, said: "This should not be happening with a Government that was squeaky clean and supposedly trying to stamp out this kind of thing."

Challenging Communities Secretary and Hazel Blears in the Commons, Tory spokesman Eric Pickles demanded the release of all Government papers relating to the development.

Ms Blears said she would "liaise with my colleagues in other departments to ascertain exactly what has happened".

Conservative MEP Martin Callanan, a former Gateshead borough councillor, called for an investigation by the police.

He said: "The whole thing is extremely suspicious and I would hope that the two things (the donations and the lifting of the Highways Agency's objection) are not linked.

"Donors usually want to be named, and the suspicious thing is why a known Labour supporter would seek to channel donations through other people."

Durham County Council's independent member for Weardale, John Shuttleworth, said: "There should be a full investigation, if nothing else, to reassure people that there is no murky business and that it really is a coincidence."

Questions were also asked yesterday about a total of £62,000 donated to Labour in the names of Raymond Ruddick and Janet Kidd, on June 29 - the day the date of the Sedgefield by-election was announced to find a replacement for Tony Blair.

At his monthly press conference, Mr Brown ducked a suggestion that the go-betweens for Mr Abrahams had "bankrolled Labour's by-election campaign in Sedgefield".

6:01am Wednesday 28th November 2007

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