Joanne Roney denies the allegation, which reportedly surfaced a few weeks after a tense meeting
Manchester council’s ex-chief executive called a property mogul a ‘massive Jewish b****nd’ amid city centre land negotiations, a court has heard.
Ben Rose, a property agent for major city centre landowners Weis Group, is suing Manchester City Council and Joanne Roney for £30,000 in damages.
Ms Roney, who left Manchester to become Birmingham City Council’s managing director last year, denies the allegation.
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On the first day of the court battle (October 20), Mr Rose told His Honour 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.
However, 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 also said he only learned the identity of the council officer who made the comment in summer 2023, when his father David Rose spoke to another property developer, Darryl Lee.
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.
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 Joanne 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 own 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 anti-semitism 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 actually 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.
For his part, Mr Myerson argued Mr Rose’s ‘stance’ a ‘cabal’ exists without Weis Group ‘has been found not true in court’, referring to this year’s Renaker trial.
Manchester council officers and Joanne Roney are due to give evidence to the trial later this week.
Proceeding.