PAs in the news

PAs have been making headlines around the world lately. From the scandalous and shocking to the touching, it?s time to find out what these assistants have been up to.

We start here at home with the revelation that former MP George Galloway is facing a police probe after his assistant complained that he had used taxpayers? cash for her to run his personal errands, including shopping for his underwear.

Aisha Khan claims that she spent more time doing Galloway?s personal tasks than she did official Parliamentary work. She also says she was required to plan his wedding to his fourth wife, make his breakfast and work for his chosen charity during her six-month stint in the job, for which she was paid an annual salary of ?30,000.

In Coventry, office manager Rachel Platt Duffin has been convicted of fraud after she created 130 false invoices to steal around ?60,000 from the family-run firm she worked for. She reportedly used the money to fund a lavish, three-week South African honeymoon. The theft was only noticed by the company?s assistant office manager when Rachel was away on her holiday and had to hand over her login details for the accounts. She has been sentenced to a two-year suspended imprisonment, as well as 300 hours of unpaid work ? not exactly the luxurious lifestyle she had become accustomed to.

Meanwhile across the pond, the daughters of legendary blues guitarist BB King believe their father may have been poisoned by two of his closest friends in a bid to cheat his family out of tens of millions of dollars. Karen Williams and Patty King claim that LaVerne Toney, King?s business manager, and Myron Johnson, his personal assistant, hastened his death and prevented his family from visiting him in the months leading up to his passing.

King says she saw Johnson administered drops to her father, who died on 14 May, on multiple occasions over several months but refused to tell her what the substance was. Toney has power of attorney over the musician?s estate, meaning she has control over what could be millions of dollars worth of inheritance for his children.

Singer Judy Garland?s former assistant has opened up about the star?s troubled life 46 years after she died. Stevie Phillips, who worked for Garland during her most turbulent years, says Garland was always genuine on stage and that ?her voice was liquid magic.?

In an interview with Closer, Stevie recalls how the Wizard of Oz star?s personal life was dominated by her unquenchable desire for attention and approval. On one night in particular, Judy deliberately set her own nightgown on fire by dropping a lit match in her lap. ?She looked at me with a smile. It said, ?Will you abandon me?? It was the acid test,? she explains.

Stevie?s memoir Judy + Liza + Robert + Freddie + David + Sue + Me is in stores now.