An MP on Tuesday night used parliamentary privilege to name and shame a string of “amoral” British lawyers whom he said had allowed Vladimir Putin’s “henchmen” to intimidate and silence a free press.

Bob Seely, the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, told the House of Commons that the UK’s legal system had become “corrupted” by kleptocrats, criminals, and oligarchs.

He named four lawyers, most of whom were involved in a series of legal claims brought against publisher HarperCollins and journalist Catherine Belton, author of Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West.

Mr Seely questioned the morality of John Kelly from Harbottle & Lewis, Nigel Tait from Carter Ruck, Hugh Tomlinson QC from Matrix and Geraldine Proudler from CMS.

“You have got to wonder about the reputations these people are going to end up with in a few years’ time,” he said.

“Maybe they are really lovely people. But maybe their amorality is really going to begin to bite their reputations in a way that will be uncomfortable.”

‘A coalition of the woeful’

He added: “How on earth have we allowed this to happen? A free press should be intimidating kleptocrats and criminals. Why have we got to the position in our society, a free society, where we have kleptocrats and criminals and oligarchs intimidating a free media?

“We have a coalition, not of the willing but of the woeful. Oligarchs, Putin’s henchmen, teaming up with amoral lawyers.”

The various claims made against Belton and the publisher had threatened to make it the most expensive defamation case in British legal history. They were all settled out of court.

Mr Kelly from Harbottle & Lewis represented Roman Abramovich, who sued for defamation and received an apology over claims that he purchased Chelsea Football Club on Putin’s orders.

Mr Tait represented state-controlled oil giant Rosneft. Hugh Tomlinson QC represented Mikhail Fridman, a Russian businessman and Petr Aven, the head of Russian lender Alfa-Bank.

Ms Proudler represented Major Pavel Karpov, a retired police officer at Putin’s Ministry of the Interior, who sued British businessman Bill Browder for libel over his campaign for justice for whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who was murdered in prison in 2009.

UK legal system being abused 

Mr Seely accused legal firms of setting up a “one-stop corruption shop” that offered “a form of legalised intimidation” used to silence their rivals, journalists and authors.

He also warned that “an unstructured and unregulated private eye business” was now collecting kompromat on people in the UK.

“People have the right to advice and legal representation but they are abusing it very, very badly in our society at the moment,” he added.

His comments come after Labour MP Ben Bradshaw said lawyers working on behalf of oligarchs should be named and shamed.