Police riddle of Labour chief suspended over abuse claims
FORMER Scottish Labour leader Alex Rowley last night stuck by his claim that police never spoke to him about abuse allegations.
The Scottish Daily Mail yesterday revealed officers are adamant that Mr Rowley was spoken to about the claims levelled at him by a former partner in 2014.
But Mr Rowley yesterday maintained that he was ‘never questioned’ about it until October this year, when media first started making inquiries about the alleged complaint.
He was suspended from the party and stood down from his posts as acting and deputy leader on Wednesday after his alleged victim claimed she endured ‘three years of hell’ as he bombarded her with abusive messages.
Labour issued a statement insisting that the party opted not to investigate allegations put to the party about Mr Rowley over the past f i ve weeks because they were ‘unsubstantiated’.
Party officials also published Mr Rowley’s resignation letter, in which he said the allegations were untrue and ‘until October 10, I had no knowledge whatsoever that this complaint had ever been made’.
The Mail was told again yesterday that officers are adamant Mr Rowley was interviewed as part of the probe.
But a spokesman for the MSP said: ‘Alex was never questioned by the police in relation to this. He was first made aware of the allegations in October of this year and at no point prior to this did he have any knowledge of the complaint.’
It is understood that lawyers drafted in to act for Mr Rowley ‘made it clear’ he had never been contacted by police.
Yesterday, Labour f aced claims of a ‘cover up’ after this newspaper revealed that the party was informed of the allegations five weeks ago.
Labour officials issued a statement last night insisting they were not in a position to investigate until the woman spoke about her complaint publicly on Wednesday. The statement said: ‘At no point did the Labour Party receive a formal complaint r egarding Alex Rowley. The par t y was approached by newspapers with unsubstantiated claims, with no evidence shared with the Labour Party prior to publication in the Sun newspaper.
‘Whilst the party could not f ormally i nvestigate these claims in the absence of evidence and a complaint, they were put to Mr Rowley, who completely refuted them.
‘As noted in Mr Rowley’s letter, he did not disclose to the party police contact on October 10, 2017. In the interests of transparency Scottish Labour is publishing the text of Mr Rowley’s letter referring himself to the independent investigations process.
‘Since the allegations were published, Labour in Holyrood has removed the whip from Mr Rowley, suspending him from the Scottish Labour parliamentary group. It is important that t hi s process is f ai r and transparent.’
In his letter, Mr Rowley said he ‘completely and absolutely’ refutes the allegations and that ‘at the end of this process I am fully confident that I will be in a position to clear my name’. He went on: ‘ On October 10 this year I was contacted by Police Scotland in relation to a complaint that was made against me almost four years ago. Until October 10 I had no knowledge whatsoever that this complaint had ever been made.
‘The police told me that after looking at the complaint at the time it was made, they deemed it not necessary to inform me that it had happened and certainly never questioned me about the accusation either formally or informally.
‘The reason they were now informing me was that they had been contacted by a newspaper asking if such a complaint had ever been made.
‘The police said it was now their duty to tell me about this complaint.
‘I have since that point been acting on my lawyer’s advice in this matter. I was advised that because the police clearly took the view that there was no case to answer I did not have to take action.’
A senior Labour source told the Mail that he had been aware of the allegations made to police but chose not to report them to the party at the time.
The source said: ‘ What happened was never discussed and nothing of the detail of what had been going on was discussed, but there had been some confrontations as far as I understand and that’s it.’
‘Fair and transparent’