The father of the Conservative party activist who apparently killed himself after allegedly being bullied by a political aide believes his son was intimidated by the head of the party’s inquiry into the affair.
Ray Johnson, the father of 21-year-old Elliott, told the Guardian that letters from Simon Mort further contributed to his son’s distress. In the letters, Mort insisted that Elliott Johnson persist with a bullying complaint against the aide Mark Clarke.
After Elliott Johnson tried to withdraw his official complaint, Mort wrote back to him on 1 September saying: “Having sent a two-page complaint to the party chairman and already occupied some considerable part of his and my time with this, you have put these facts into the debate along with information provided by many other people. Therefore I believe that you should have the courtesy to meet me for 20 minutes ... Please confirm that you will be there. Simon.”
A day later, Elliott Johnson received an email from Mort saying: “I trust most earnestly that I am going to see you at Matthew Parker Street [Conservative campaign headquarters] 11am tomorrow because 1) I have fixed to come up to London to continue this investigation and your component is just part of a bigger mosaic involving other people [and] 2) Even if you do decide that a formal complaint is not appropriate, I still need more information to explain to several very senior members of the party, who have absorbed your submission, why you have come to this position.”
Private correspondence leaked to the Guardian following Elliott Johnson’s death reveals that the tone of Mort’s responses left Johnson distraught. In Facebook exchanges, he wrote: “I’m very worried about what I will be thought of by the central conservative party”, “I feel I must go and argue for no further action on my part. Not going will get myself and Mark into further trouble”, and “The way that email is written makes it unacceptable for me not to attend”.
Johnson did subsequently attend the meeting with Mort, and was told he could withdraw his complaint.
Ray Johnson said: “Having been bullied by Mark Clarke to withdraw his complaint, he was then pressured by Simon Mort. This is the language of an army officer to a squaddie. He felt cornered by everybody and it all worked against him.”
The internal inquiry set up by party chairman Andrew Feldman was criticised for lacking independence, and on Monday, the party announced it had appointed the law firm Clifford Chance to conduct an “independent” inquiry. This has also come under fire after it was revealed that the Conservatives had used the firm regularly for legal advice, and that it had sponsored a party for the 1922 Committee at Marco Pierre White’s Rooftop restaurant in 2012.
Last week Grant Shapps resigned from his ministerial position at the Department for International Development after a Guardian investigation revealed that he had received complaints – including a letter from his predecessor, Sayeeda Warsi – about Clarke’s behaviour when he was party co-chairman. This was despite the Conservative party having claimed there was no evidence of written complaints.
Now the pressure is on Feldman because he was the most senior member of a team that signed off on the budget to allow Clarke to run RoadTrip, the campaign that bussed young Conservatives around the country to support the party in the general election.
Ray Johnson is also unhappy with the way in which Feldman, a close friend of David Cameron and the party’s chief fundraiser and “fixer”, has dealt with Clarke’s alleged bullying.
A spokesman for the Conservative party told the Guardian it was Feldman who established the internal inquiry and appointed Mort.
“Andrew Feldman’s position is untenable,” said Ray Johnson. “The more the complaints into Mark Clarke are scrutinised, the more apparent it is that Feldman is at the heart of the Conservative party’s dilatory and inept response to the complaints.”
A spokesperson for Mort said he was “keenly aware of the sensitivity of the situation. He went to great lengths to arrange and carry out the interviews in as sympathetic a way as possible. Because of the nature of the complaints, he regarded it as essential to investigate the case thoroughly and urgently. This was the tone which he intended to convey.”
A spokesperson for Feldman said he acted as soon as a complaint was received. Feldman said via the spokeperson: “I was wholly unaware of allegations of bullying and inappropriate sexual conduct by Mr Clarke prior to August 2015. Such behaviour is abhorrent to me and had this been brought to my attention I would have taken immediate action to investigate, as I have done since I received the complaint in August 2015.”
