Tory women blow whistle on sex pest election guru who bullied suicide aide
‘He started running his hands over me’
SHOCKING claims of violent sexual abuse by one of David Cameron’s top Election aides have been reported to Conservative chiefs.
Three female Tory whistleblowers say senior aide Mark Clarke, who ran the party’s Road Trip 2015, attacked and threatened them.
One says he forced her against a wall and demanded sex; a second claims he threatened to ‘destroy her’ after she stood up to him; and a third alleged he molested her in a bathroom when she was 17.
Two of the women say that he bragged of using alcohol to make women sleep with him, calling it his ‘IIP’ technique: ‘Isolate, Inebriate and Penetrate.’ They are among more than 20 Tories who have complained to an official party inquiry linked to the suicide of young Conservative aide Elliott Johnson.
British Transport Police have launched an investigation after the 21-year-old was found dead by a railway track last month. His funeral took place on Friday.
Clarke and two other Tory aides were banned from last week’s party conference after Johnson had accused them of bullying. Johnson’s suicide note said that he had been bullied by Clarke. Tory chiefs have passed on complaints to police, who have already interviewed some of the whistleblowers.
Clarke is also accused of preying on women in a 100-strong team of young Tory activists on his Road Trip campaign. Some of those on the trail were as young as 16.
Tory HQ handed out up to £250 a night to provide free drinks for the activists as they toured key constituencies and stayed in hotels.
Once dubbed a ‘Tatler Tory’ and tipped for the Cabinet, Clarke allegedly used bullying and blackmail to try to control the Tory youth movement and become an MP.
Conservative chiefs now face calls to explain why Clarke, a known womaniser, was allowed to take charge of an Election team involving young girls.
He has told friends he once accidentally dislocated the jaw of one of his lovers when he slapped her during a consensual sex session, requiring her to seek hospital treatment in the early hours. He said they told doctors it was a ‘netball injury’.
Newly ennobled Baroness Emma Pidding, a personal and political ally of Clarke and chairman of his rebranded Road Trip 2020, also faces questions. She arranged for Clarke to be feted by Cameron in public at the Conservative National Convention in July.
Tory HQ has been told married Clarke, 37, regularly shared a room with his mistress, India Brummitt, in Road Trip overnight stays.
Brummitt is a Commons aide to Tory MP Claire Perry who advises David Cameron on how to curb the ‘sexualisation of children’.
Clarke’s physical attack on John- son in a Westminster pub in August, witnessed by dozens of Tory aides, triggered protests by those who had suffered similarly at his hands.
Incredibly, Clarke stepped up his threats and intimidation to try to silence them. Johnson refused to back down in a second pub confrontation with Clarke days before his death on September 15.
Now two Tory women whistleblowers who gave evidence against Clarke to Tory chiefs have spoken to The Mail on Sunday in return for remaining anonymous.
One, aged 20, revealed how Clarke targeted her on a Road Trip visit to Harlow, Essex. She said: ‘We were walking down a street late at night. He waited until the others with us had moved ahead and shoved me into a doorway. He grabbed me by the neck and started running his hands over me. He said he wanted to sleep with me and named the hotel where he wanted to take me. Luckily someone came round the corner and I managed to get away but he didn’t give up.
‘He kept pursuing me with text messages trying to arrange a date and time. I wouldn’t call it attempted rape but it was certainly an assault.’
She said that Clarke’s attack on Johnson in Westminster’s Marquis of Granby pub on August 12, when he grabbed the young aide and made wild threats over a petty dispute, was the tipping point. ‘Everyone saw it,’ she said. ‘People were not prepared to stay quiet any longer.’
The second whistleblower said Clarke ‘mentally abused’ her after they had a sexual relationship when she was in her 20s and he helped her obtain a high-profile role.
‘He would shout things like, “If you betray me I will ruin your life. I will destroy you telling lies to the Press.” ’ Their relationship ended and, after the Election – when she told him she was leaving Road Trip – Clarke confronted her in a bar.
‘He put his face in mine and screamed at me saying I was “dead” and “toast”, and he would stop me becoming a Conservative candidate,’ she said. ‘I was crying. No one complained about Mark on Road Trip because there was a culture of fear. Most were very young and who could they complain to? He was in charge. He acted like a sexual predator and enjoyed rough sex. Yet he was put in charge of 100 or so young people, including many girls staying in hotels. He boasts of what he calls his “IIP” method of making women sleep with him – Isolate, Inebriate, Penetrate. It is appalling.’
She claims Clarke grabbed her phone to delete Facebook messages he had sent her so Tory bosses could not see them. The whistleblower also alleges that when Johnson committed suicide, Clarke’s allies tried to bully her into taking the blame.
The whistleblower said hours after Johnson’s death Ms Brummitt told her to “keep your f****** mouth shut”. ‘She knew I had seen Elliott the night before he died when he told me how upset he was,’ the whistleblower added.
‘She made it clear she would use that to falsely suggest it was my fault. I told CCHQ.’ Ms Brummitt was involved in an angry exchange with one of the whistleblowers at the Tory conference last week.
A third female whistleblower has told Conservative chiefs Clarke sexually molested her in a bathroom at a Tory event when she was
‘If you betray me I will ruin your life’
17. Meanwhile, a male whistleblower has told Tory HQ that Clarke targeted him after he complained about Clarke’s sexual harassment of his girlfriend on Road Trip.
The victim said he was duped into performing a sex act on a fake video site and asked for £2,500 to stop it being posted on his girlfriend’s Facebook page. When he refused, the threat was carried out.
He claims Clarke was responsible and complained to Tory HQ. Clarke denies it, but admitted trying to leak the video. He said it was in order to ‘help’ the victim of the scam.
One of Clarke’s allies, Andre Walker – who was also banned from the conference – turned on Clarke last week. The former aide to Tory MP David Morris told The Mail on Sunday that Clarke was a ‘nasty piece of work’. Clarke hit the headlines when he stood as a parliamentary candidate in Tooting at the 2010 Election. He lost after an ex-girlfriend accused him of ‘appalling’ behaviour.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week how, just days before his death, Johnson accused Clarke of trying to blackmail him in a secretly recorded showdown at The Imperial Durbar pub in Tooting. Johnson sent the recording to police. Challenged a week ago, Clarke denied any wrongdoing and said the bullying allegations were a false attempt to stop him exposing ‘endemic drug use’ by young Tories.
‘I highlighted this with the individuals concerned – some tried to silence me with false bullying allegations,’ he said.
‘The party’s response was to ignore and then suspend me. I wish they would take my concerns more seriously.’ Neither Clarke nor Ms Brummitt responded to calls yesterday.
A Tory spokeswoman added: ‘We are taking our inquiry extremely seriously and need to establish all the facts. We cannot say anything further.’
Neither Mr Clarke nor Ms Brummitt responded to calls yesterday.
Last Sunday’s article said, incorrectly, that India Brummitt was among those barred from the Tory conference. We are happy to make clear this was not the case.