Harding was born on 23 March 1956,[1] and educated at high school in Banjul, followed by sponsorship from the Commonwealth to attend a diplomatic program in French, and then studies in Scotland and Canada.
In December 2014, a "gang of Gambian diplomats" were found guilty at Southwark Crown Court of running a "tax-free tobacconist" from embassy premises in London for three years, and avoiding £5 million of tax.
[4][5] Seven people including the Deputy Head of the Gambian Diplomatic Mission, Yusupha Bojang, were found guilty.
[4] They had ordered 32 tonnes of tax-free rolling tobacco, and abused a scheme that provided a duty-free tax exemption on goods for personal use, even though none of them actually smoked.
[4] Harding appeared at the hearing, but was not a defendant, and said that she had used the scheme to buy perfume and rice, but had never talked about it with her staff, and only became aware of the abuse of diplomatic privilege after she was written to by the UK's Foreign & Commonwealth Office.