Joanne Roney is to attend court in Manchester to defend herself against claim in county court battle
Birmingham City Council’s most senior officer Joanne Roney will have to give evidence to a court in Manchester later this week to defend a claim that she called a property mogul a ‘massive Jewish b****nd’ amid tense land negotiations.
Ms Roney is named in a lawsuit in her former capacity as chief executive of Manchester City Council. The case has been brought by Ben Rose, a property agent for Manchester city centre landowners Weis Group, who is suing Manchester City Council, and Roney specifically, for £30,000 in damages.
Ms Roney, who left Manchester over a year ago to become Birmingham City Council’s managing director, denies the allegation.
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On the first day of the hearing yesterday, Monday, October 20, Mr Rose told Judge Khan he was informed by Mark Powell that an undisclosed staffer at ‘the council’ referred to Mr Rose ‘as a ‘massive Jewish b****nd’ in June 2022.
Mr Powell did not hear the comment directly from Ms Roney, instead from another council employee, Richard Cohen. Mr Cohen denies telling Mr Powell about the alleged slur.
Mr Rose said he only learned the identity of the council officer who made the comment much later, in summer 2023, when his father David Rose spoke to another property developer, Darryl Lee.
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The five-day county court battle is the latest chapter in a long-running feud between Mr Rose and the Weis family, who are funding his case, and Manchester’s public bodies.
Earlier this year, Aubrey Weis took Andy Burnham ’s office, the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), to the competition appeals tribunal over two loans the GMCA issued to Renaker, the property developer behind Deansgate Square in the heart of the city.
They claimed the £140m loans constituted a ‘subsidy’ which ‘distorted’ Manchester’s property market, but the tribunal rejected the claim.
In this case, Mr Rose has insisted his racial discrimination claim is ‘separate’ to the row over his claim that Manchester council has a ‘cabal’ of ‘preferred’ developers to take on city centre regeneration.
He added he was told of the reported slur ‘three weeks to the day’ after meeting Ms Roney to discuss a deal over land owned by Weis Group near Great Jackson Street, the city’s designated skyscraper district, which ended acrimoniously.
“We believe there’s a conspiracy. We have decided to stand up to them and not sell out. They want to hound us out of our hometown, to be frank,” Mr Rose said under cross-examination from council barrister, Simon Myerson KC.
“I think it’s upsetting I would put myself here and sit through this, having experienced antisemitism all my life, for commercial negotiation. I fail to see how sitting here and doing this will assist with negotiating a head lease agreement that we have not negotiated since December 6, 2023.”
Mr Rose is not Jewish himself, but said his long association with the Weises, who are Jewish, meant he was often thought of as a member of the community.
Mr Myerson argued Mr Rose’s ‘stance’ that a ‘cabal’ existed without Weis Group ‘has been found not true in court’, referring to this year’s Renaker trial.
The case poses an unwanted distraction for Ms Roney and comes at a critical time for troubled Birmingham City Council but the claim against her has potentially damaging implications.
She is due to travel to Manchester to give evidence to the trial later this week.
Proceeding.