Assault allegation stuns colleagues, politicians

VA N C O U V E R • Veteran B.C. politicians are reacting with disbelief to an allegation of sexual assault made against former premier Gordon Campbell.

The alleged assault was in 2013 in London, England, while Campbell was Canadian High Commissioner to Britain, and is now being investigated by the city’s metropolitan police force, according to a report by the Daily Telegraph published Friday.

Reached by phone Friday, Sheila Orr, who worked with Campbell for about 12 years in the B.C. Liberal party and as an MLA, said she knows him well and never saw him behave inappropriately with anyone during that time.

“Gordon Campbell is not a warm and fuzzy person, but under no circumstances have I ever seen him groping anybody,” she said.

Orr said she did not wish to diminish the allegation and only wanted to speak about her personal experience working with Campbell.

“Gordon Campbell was such a cold fish, I could never imagine him groping anybody,” she said.

Sam Sullivan, who was mayor of Vancouver from 2005 to 2008, said that while it is important to take any sexual assault allegation seriously, the groping claim made against Campbell described behaviour “completely out of character” for him.

“He’s a good man, he’s never had any intimation about anything like that,” he said. “I don’t know what to say other than that. He’s an amazing person who’s done so much.”

Former MLA Ida Chong, who worked with Campbell in various capacities for 15 years, said he never made any “untoward advances” to her.

“He showed nothing but respect around me,” she said.

Carole Taylor, a former Liberal cabinet minister, said she had hadn’t heard of the allegation before she was contacted by Postmedia. She and Campbell had a friendly, professional relationship, she said.

“I never had any experience or knowledge of that with Gordon,” she said.

Martyn Brown, Campbell’s longtime former chief of staff, said he hadn’t heard about the allegation or read the Telegraph story, and was shocked by the report.

“In my 13 years of working for him, never did I ever experience anything like this with him.”