Revealed: Secret tape of ‘Tatler Tory’ bullying suicide victim
Menacing blackmail threats made to young activist at ‘kangaroo court’... in revenge for adultery rumours
THE Tory Party was last night rocked by claims that blackmail, drugs, adultery and thuggery are linked to the death of a Conservative official.
The controversy over the suicide of Tory activist Elliott Johnson took a dramatic turn after a secret tape recording sent to police days before his death was obtained by The Mail on Sunday.
The tape, made by Johnson, shows how he was bullied by Mark Clarke, who ran David Cameron’s Road Trip 2015 Election campaign, and fellow Conservative Andre Walker in a menacing showdown in a pub.
Clarke – once dubbed a ‘Tatler Tory’ and tipped as a future Cabinet Minister – Walker and fellow Conservative Sam Armstrong have been banned from the party conference following allegations that Johnson’s death was connected to bullying.
He was found dead next to a railway track in Bedfordshire last month and his family believe he took his own life. Our investigation has established that:
In a chilling tape recording of a 90-minute ‘kangaroo court’ in a pub, Clarke, 37, threatened to ruin Johnson, 21, by exposing a minor Twitter gaffe he made at an election count;
Clarke’s sidekick Walker called Johnson a ‘f****** d***h***’ and compared him to a Nazi collaborator for complaining about Clarke;
In a letter to Tory chairman Lord Feldman, Johnson accused Clarke of ‘virtually beating him up’ in a separate pub clash.
The scandal has sent shockwaves through Conservative high command. Clarke is said to have made similar threats against other Tory officials who complained about him. In the recording, Johnson said they included allegations of ‘adultery’.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week how Clarke tried to leak a video of another Tory rival duped into performing a lewd sex act in a film sent to a fake website in the name of a French woman. The victim says he was told to pay £2,500 ‘blackmail’ to avoid the video being put online. When he refused, it was posted on YouTube.
Clarke has admitted trying to leak the video to the media, but insisted it was to stop the scam. He is also accused of trying to leak allegations concerning cocaine and a senior female Tory aide who complained about him. He denies it.
It is not the first time he has hit the headlines. Before the 2010 Election, when he stood as a Parliamentary candidate, his nurse girlfriend revealed his ‘appalling’ behaviour.
The new scandal comes after Clarke was praised by Cameron for leading Road Trip 2015, which involved sending busloads of young Tories into target seats to drum up votes. There were also claims of boozing and sexual high jinks.
Cameron and Clarke – the former chairman of Conservative Future, the party’s youth wing – shared a platform at the party’s National Convention in July.
But Clarke’s triumph turned sour as Tory chiefs received up to 25 complaints against him.
Some involved his alleged treat- ment of women. Others, such as the one by Johnson, who edited the website of the Conservative Way Forward group, set up in honour of Margaret Thatcher, involved bullying.
In the pub tape, Clarke and Walker, both nearly twice as old as Johnson, act like ‘heavies’ in a scene from TV’s Minder. Against a background of thumping disco music, they can be heard bullying Johnson.
Clarke makes a series of cold, calculating threats, backed by wild, foul-mouthed outbursts by Walker.
It culminates in a direct threat over an incident in Johnson’s student days at a Euro elections count. He tweeted some results before they were announced, not knowing it was against election law. He was cautioned by police, but assured it was a minor matter.
In the tape, Clarke urges him to withdraw his complaint and menacingly asks Johnson about his plan to work for a Tory MP. ‘Have you spoken to the Commons authorities about your [police] caution?’ Johnson accuses Clarke of threatening him and hits back: ‘I don’t appreciate tactics like that. And I doubt it’s the first time you’ve done it.’
Johnson also accuses Clarke of ‘attacking’ him in Westminster’s Marquis Of Granby pub, a stone’s throw from the Commons, on August 12, adding: ‘You behaved disgracefully.’
Johnson tells Clarke: ‘You bloody well need a kick up the a*** doing that kind of thing. CCHQ [Tory HQ] don’t like you.’ He added ‘every man and his dog’ knew the complaints against Clarke included adultery.
Married Clarke replies: ‘Adultery?’ Johnson: ‘I’m telling you what they are going to say. I don’t give a toss.’ In his formal complaint to Lord Feldman after the Marquis Of Granby incident, Johnson wrote: ‘Mark held me down on my bar stool with one hand on my shoulder, saying he would destroy my career.
‘He said he “squashed problems like ants when they are small and
young and this is what I am going to do to you!” He shouted at me, bullied and interrogated me for half an hour.’
Johnson added: ‘I feared he would attack me. He then brought up the police caution. I have never covered it up. He said he would destroy my career. He was shouting that I was a criminal and it would be all across the front pages of national newspapers unless I apologised.
‘I tried to drink my pint but he grabbed my hand and said, “Stop drinking and look at me!” He grabbed my chin to make sure I was.
‘When I told him he was mad, he said he hoped I had psychiatric reports proving his mental illness or he would sue. He told me not to tell anyone else about the incident and not to complain. I am deeply upset.’
When Clarke heard about Johnson’s complaint, another pub meeting was arranged. This time, Johnson secretly taped it and sent it to police – and Tory chiefs – before he died on September 15. In a suicide note seen by this newspaper, he wrote: ‘I have been bullied by Mark Clarke and betrayed by Andre Walker. All my political bridges are burnt. Where can I go from here?’
Johnson’s father Ray says he may launch a private prosecution to track down those he blames for his son’s death if police take no action.
‘Elliott was not a depressive boy,’ he told The Mail on Sunday. ‘He was subjected to a long and nasty campaign of intimidation in the Tory Party, yet nothing was done.’ In a statement last night, Mr Clarke repeated an earlier denial that he had ‘bullied or harassed’ Johnson. He denied threatening to expose Johnson’s police caution or a woman Tory official who allegedly took drugs. Nor had he made threats against other Conservatives.
He said the Tory Party had put a number of complaints to him, but none included adultery.
Mr Walker dismissed the allegations against him as ‘rubbish’.