A long-awaited report into allegations of bullying within the Conservative party has identified 13 alleged victims of Mark Clarke, the so-called Tatler Tory, over a 20-month period, including six accusations of “sexually inappropriate behaviour”.
Clarke, who was appointed by the party to run its RoadTrip2015 election campaign, came under heavy scrutiny after Elliott Johnson, a young Tory activist, took his own life in September 2015 and named Clarke as his tormentor in a suicide note.
Eleven months after Johnson’s death at the age of 21, a summary of the findings of an official inquiry, published on Wednesday, reveals that senior Conservatives, including David Cameron’s spin doctor Lynton Crosby and former co-chairman Lord Feldman, had raised concerns about Clarke’s conduct.
However, Clifford Chance, the law firm that conducted the investigation, found that senior figures including Feldman, Crosby and former party co-chairman Grant Shapps were not aware of Clarke’s alleged bullying of youth activists between 1 January 2014 and 14 August 2015. That finding has prompted accusations of a “whitewash” by Johnson’s family.
Johnson’s father, Ray, who declined to take part in the inquiry owing to concerns over its independence and transparency, told the Guardian: “The summary seems that we will get what we feared – a whitewash. It seems that the Tories can find the £2m for this report, but not the will to stand up and apologise for their mistakes.”
Ray Johnson said the current Conservative party chairman, Patrick McLoughlin, had written to the family stating the inquiry had found that the party acted “entirely properly” when dealing with a complaint from Elliott Johnson before he died. McLoughlin’s letter says a new code of conduct will be put in place for volunteer leaders like Clarke.
Clarke, who declined to be interviewed as part of the investigation, denied the allegations included in the report.
His solicitor told the law firm: “Clarke has cooperated and will continue to cooperate with the police, the coroner and any other statutory body charged with investigating any matters relating to the subject matter of Clifford Chance’s investigation on behalf of the Conservative party board.
“The police investigation into Elliott Johnson’s death and other enquiries are ongoing, and it is not appropriate to respond to allegations until the end of those processes. However, the allegations made against Mr Clarke in the Clifford Chance report are wholly untrue and unsubstantiated. Many are based on totally fabricated media reports. All these allegations are vehemently denied.”
Shapps appointed Clarke, a failed parliamentary candidate, in June 2014 to run RoadTrip2015 – in which young activists were bussed around the country to rally support in marginal seats – despite reviewing Clarke’s candidate file, which detailed allegations of aggressive and bullying behaviour when he stood in Tooting in 2010, the report said.
His appointment did not make him an employee of the party but it did give him a title, which the report says he used to “convey the appearance of authority”.
As further allegations surfaced in the wake of Johnson’s death, Shapps resigned as a minister in November over his appointment of Clarke; he denied wrongdoing but said “responsibility should rest somewhere”. Shapps’s resignation came a day after the Guardian revealed he had received a letter from Tory peer Sayeeda Warsi complaining about Clarke’s conduct in January 2015. The party had until that point claimed that it was first made aware of Clarke’s alleged behaviour in August 2015.
Feldman and Crosby, as well as former deputy chairman Lord Stephen Gilbert, were among senior Conservatives who raised concerns about Clarke when it emerged he was falsely using the job title of “director in CCHQ [Conservative Campaign HQ]”, the inquiry found. In one email exchange between Shapps and Crosby, Shapps admitted Clarke was a “difficult individual who delivered” and keeping him as RoadTrip director was a “calculated risk to be taken to help build the campaign network up”.
A month before he killed himself, Elliott Johnson complained to CCHQ about an alleged altercation with Clarke in the Marquis of Granby pub in Westminster. The Clifford Chance report reveals that upon receiving the complaint, Feldman said he had “always had the gravest possible reservations” about Clarke – but in relation to his “competence as a campaign organiser”.
Clifford Chance reviewed 60,000 documents and interviewed 62 individuals over seven months for the inquiry. It received written evidence from a further four individuals. The law firm said there were at least 12 individuals with whom it particularly wished to speak but who did not provide evidence, including alleged victims of bullying and alleged perpetrators.
Thirteen individuals were identified who were alleged to be victims of bullying, harassment and inappropriate conduct by Clarke between January 2014 and August 2015. Three of the alleged victims were older party members.
Six allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour relating to Clarke were identified, the report says. “These included allegations that Mr Clarke propositioned activists or tried to kiss them,” it adds.
It has also emerged that Clarke was accused of uploading a list of ineligible voters to the party’s voter database ahead of the 2014 election held by the official youth wing, Conservative Future. Clarke denied the allegation, which was also brought to the attention of Feldman.
The report concludes that there was no written, published procedure or common practice for party members to raise a complaint with CCHQ. “This places staff in the position of having to exercise discretion in how to deal with complaints that [are] received,” it says.
Ben Harris-Quinney, chair of rightwing thinktank the Bow Group, who gave evidence to the inquiry, said: “It would appear from the report that CCHQ officials were happy to overlook Mark Clarke’s track record and behaviour because he was able to deliver positive campaigning results using nefarious tactics.”
In response to the report, the Conservative party said it would set up a hotline for complaints made by volunteers and overhaul its system for reporting complaints.
McLoughlin, who was appointed chair of the party by prime minister Theresa May last month, said: “The death of Elliott Johnson was a tragedy and our thoughts remain with his family and friends.
“As we address the findings of this report, I want to make clear that there can be no place for bullying behaviour in our party and we all have a responsibility to act when it occurs. The actions we are taking today will continue to ensure that volunteers, who are so vital to our party, can flourish.”
Johnson, 21, was found dead on the railway tracks at Sandy station in Bedfordshire on 15 September. He left three letters, one of which said Clarke had bullied him and that a political journalist, Andre Walker, had betrayed him.
His death triggered an explosive chain of events in which whistleblowers came forward and revealed a number of political figures – some young, some senior – to be tangled up in sleaze and scandal. The Tory party commissioned Clifford Chance to run an inquiry into the allegations in December last year.