Tatler Tory ‘told suicide activist he’d squash him like an ant’
TATLER Tory Mark Clarke told a 21-year- old party activist who later killed himself that he would ‘ squash him like an ant’, an inquest heard yesterday.
Elliott Johnson was found dead on railway tracks in September last year, less than two weeks after he had been urged by Clarke to drop allegations of bullying against him.
Senior election aide Clarke’s actions ‘verged on the criminal’ and he drove another young woman to a nervous breakdown, the hearing was told.
Mr Johnson’s suicide and the bullying allegations sent shockwaves through Conservative high command – sparking an investigation and the resignation of party chairman Grant Shapps.
Yesterday’s inquest into Mr Johnson’s death heard how Clarke’s campaign of intimidation extended to other volunteers, and led to at least two ‘very serious’ complaints by women.
Clarke, 38, ran the Road Trip project which bussed young Tory activists into marginal seats
‘Vile stream of threats’
ahead of last year’s election.
Paul Abbott, chief executive of the pressure group Conservative Way Forward (CWF) where Mr Johnson worked, said Clarke had a personal animosity towards him which grew into a ‘vendetta’ against his group. ‘Clarke’s dislike of me had become embittered and entrenched,’ he told the hearing in Ampthill, Bedfordshire. ‘All my spare time was consumed with Clarke’s attacks and people asking me to help them.
‘Although Elliott has become the focus because of what happened, there were many other people complaining who were volunteers on Conservative Way Forward.’ He added: ‘Clarke’s behaviour degenerated very markedly. What had begun in June as comparatively low-level and stupid became irate in July and outright bullying in August.’
He described it yesterday as ‘potentially criminal’.
Clarke, dubbed the Tatler Tory after he was tipped as a future minister by the magazine, has been expelled from the party but denies all the allegations. Coroner Tom osborne turned down a request by Mr Johnson’s parents, Ray and Alison, to call Clarke as a witness – saying the inquest was not his ‘trial’.
Mr Johnson died on a railway line in Bedfordshire, weeks after telling colleagues he feared Clarke and his henchmen would ‘knife me until the end of the earth’. He began researching suicide on the internet following an altercation with Clarke and a journalist, Andre Walker, in the Marquis of Granby pub in Westminster that led to a formal complaint of bullying to the party.
He claimed he was subjected to a ‘vile stream of threats and abuse,’ the inquest heard.
Mr Johnson said Clarke had threatened to sue him for breach of copyright over an image he used in an article he wrote for CWF. He also claimed Clarke grabbed his chin aggressively and threatened to expose a Twitter gaffe Mr Johnson made as a student during an election count.
The complaint added: ‘He is very tall and I am very short. He got even more irate.
‘Mark knew I had a caution for tweeting the result of Euro elections while at nottingham University. Mark said he would use the information to destroy my career and said it would be across front pages unless I apologised. Mark had gone ballistic.
‘He said he had sued hundreds of people. He squashes them like ants when they are small and young. [He said] this is what I am going to do to you.’
Mr Johnson later withdrew his complaint against Clarke despite pleas from Simon Mort – who was leading an investigation for the Tories and said others had also come forward. The coroner recorded a verdict of suicide.