On December 4 2020, Liverpool was shaken by a series of arrests. The sitting mayor of the city, Joe Anderson, was due to hold a cabinet meeting that morning from home, as the country was in lockdown thanks to the pandemic. Mayor Anderson was going to honour the armed forces who had helped the city to carry out a successful trial of mass covid testing in the previous month.
It was a project he had personally been praised for by the government. But his morning turned out to be very different as police detectives turned up at his Old Swan home, Joe Anderson was one of four men arrested that day as part of Merseyside Police's Operation Aloft - an investigation into building contracts within the city of Liverpool. Another to be held that day was the former mayor's son, David Anderson.
Both men have not been charged and have denied any wrongdoing. It was actually a year earlier that Operation Aloft was launched. The investigation exploded into view in dramatic fashion in December 2019 when Liverpool Council's then Director of Regeneration - Nick Kavanagh - was arrested at the local authority's Cunard Building headquarters on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and misconduct in a public office.
At the same time, city developer Elliot Lawless was held by Aloft detectives on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud, bribery and corruption. Both men deny wrongdoing and have not been charged. Aloft has seen numerous other figures arrested since it began, with several of those believed to be l.
