Ex-Jewish Leadership Council chief executive Jeremy Newmark has protested his innocence after a police investigation into alleged financial wrongdoing was shelved, saying: ”Not a single allegation against me has ever been proven.”

The JC revealed last Thursday how the Metropolitan Police’s serious fraud team had decided not to proceed with its investigation, launched after an independent panel report set up at the behest of the Charity Commission.

The independent report found that, during Mr Newmark’s time at the JLC, £111,734 could not be accounted for and that an additional £266,189 merited further investigation.

But a lack of proper accounting records left the investigating panel unable to give an accurate figure as to the full amount.

The panel said that its work was “seriously hampered” by the absence of key documents and records.

It reported witnesses saying that, one week after Mr Newmark stood down as JLC chief executive in 2013, he “came into the office and ‘removed files, information etc’".

But in a statement, Mr Newmark said: "No evidence was provided that any evidence was removed or destroyed.

“The only person who suggested such a thing was the anonymous so-called whistleblower. It was denied by others present at the time I was accused of removing items.

“The Panel also discovered that some of the evidence I was accused of removing from the JLC office was actually under lock and key at the auditors at the same time as I supposedly removed it.

“Just one of the many things that didn't stack up, like the disappearance of any records of an entire accounting system, including the software, that I had no access to at any point, even during my employment at the JLC.”

Addressing the issue of missing money, Mr Newmark, who was chief executive of the JLC for seven years until 2013, said: "The sum of £100k referred to in the report was not money that simply 'vanished'. 

“That figure was calculated by aggregating together what the Panel described as "potentially questionable expenditure". 

“That language could, of course be used to describe practically anything. The Panel were supplied with explanations, evidence and justification for most of those transactions where they put the details to me. All of those responses were contained in the appendix that they redacted from the published report - but were supplied to the police.”

Mr Newmark, who is a Labour concillor in Borehamwood, added that he had not “been able to the other side of the story” and insisted only one side of the allegations against him had been reported.

He added: "But after a year long independent inquiry chaired by a retired senior Judge; after a forensic accountants report; and after being referred to Operation Falcon, the serious fraud team of the Met Police not a single allegation against me has ever been proven.”

Last year, he also stood down as chair of the Jewish Labour Movement when the JC reported the story.