In March 2020, Charlotte Leslie, a former Conservative MP, and widely regarded as a thoughtful, friendly woman, had her life turned upside down. The threat of professional and financial ruin hit her, and stayed with her until a few months ago, solely because she had offended a wealthy man.

Leslie was the director of the Conservative Middle East Council. Mohamed Amersi, a businessman worth hundreds of millions of pounds, appeared from nowhere and announced that he wanted to become the council’s chairman. Leslie politely showed him the door. The next thing she knew, Amersi had set up a rival Middle East organisation to liaise between the Conservative party and the oil-rich states of the Gulf. Who is this guy, she thought, and why are senior figures in my party asking me to accommodate him?

She googled Amersi and found that his rival organisation recruited Russian nationals. She continued searching and discovered that Amersi had advised on a telecoms deal with a company that was later found to be controlled by an associate of Putin. Leslie sent a memo that contained nothing except publicly available information about Amersi to senior Conservative figures, diplomats and intelligence officers.

The truth is that English civil law is a luxury good that is far beyond the means of most citizens of this country

Tom Burgis’s Cuckooland expands on the contents of that memo to provide a rip-roaring account of the overweening power of money. Amersi was born in Kenya, with an Indian-Iranian background. He needed a guide through the British Establishment, and there was no better one for hire in the first decade of this century than Ben Elliot, who ran Quintessentially, a ‘concierge’ service that supplied the wealthy with every luxury. In 2013 Elliot arranged for Amersi to travel to Scotland to dine with Prince Charles, as he then was, whose wife Camilla happened to be Elliot’s aunt. (We are on a visit to a small world.) Donations followed and, in 2015, Amersi became a trustee of the Prince’s Trust International. Elliot was also vice-chairman of the Conservative party, and Amersi and his wife donated hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Amersi was used to deference and expected service. The knowledge that Leslie had raised questions about him in a private letter to 13 people drove him wild. With the solicitors Carter Ruck acting for him, Amersi sued for breach of data protection law. It was a ludicrous case, which the judge threw out for breaking procedural rules. Undeterred, they came back at Leslie with a second case, and sued her for libel. Desperate to get them off her back, Leslie offered an apology. Amersi refused to accept it and went on with his quest for vengeance.

Until the Court of Appeal threw out Amersi’s final action in December last year, upholding the High Court judgment that he had no case worth hearing, Leslie faced bankruptcy. And that was not all. Amersi hired a PR firm, Phil Hall Associates, to spread his case against her. An offshoot of the Kroll security conglomerate dug up what dirt they could find. Because Leslie taped the conversation, Burgis can tell us the story of phone calls she received from one Carl Hunter OBE, a party fixer and adviser to Tory ministers. He said: ‘You’re looking into a world of pain on this. If you are not careful this will keep you up at night, monopolise your life, for as long as it lasts.’

As the attacks piled up, I got to know and admire Leslie and her partner. They were tough and brave and are now determined to seek justice by going after Carter Ruck. But there was no doubt that they were fearful, and that Amersi had monopolised their lives.

Naturally, the picture Burgis paints of Amersi is of an entitled man. When Burgis asked about his business deals, he cried:

You are dumb, you don’t understand anything about transactions. Your job is to ask stupid questions. Do I ask you to diligence anyone? No, because you’d be useless. Do I ask you to read the financial statement? No, because you’d be useless.

But Amersi is also naive. The Conservative party and royalty were happy to take his money, but when the controversy about Leslie made the papers they dropped him.

There’s a cynical saying in the US that ‘a good politician is a man who when he is bought stays bought’. The Tories did not stay bought. So shocked was Amersi, he leaked emails recounting his dealings with Ben Elliot, the wider Conservative party and the royal family to a grateful press.

He leaves one achievement behind him. Because of Amersi and the threats to journalists from Russian oligarchs, all parties are committed to giving the courts the power to strike out abusive actions from the super rich. Welcome though these measures are, they rather miss the point. Judges struck out both Amersi’s actions before they went to trial. Amersi refused to provide information about his costs.

The truth is the English civil law is a luxury good that is far beyond the means of most citizens of this country. Until there is a radical reforming campaign to reduce costs, the law will continue to be at the service of men like Amersi.