Remain couple: We recorded row
Millionaire’s daughter (who got funding for pro-EU festival ) and her partner handed tape to newspaper – even after the police insisted there was no problem
IT SAYS much about modern times that on hearing a commotion next door, Tom Penn – acting ‘purely out of instinct’ – reached for his smartphone and pressed record.
The phone call to police would come later. First, Mr Penn, 30, wanted evidence that might prove ‘important’.
Such a reaction had nothing to do, of course, with the fact that those engaged in the crockery-breaking barney just after midnight on Friday were none other than Boris Johnson and his 31-year-old girlfriend Carrie Symonds – or that the sleuthing Mr Penn and his wife Eve Leigh are avowed Remain supporters.
Both are playwrights and Ms Leigh, described as a New Yorkborn ‘Leftist’, once gleefully boasted on Twitter that she had given Boris ‘the finger’.
The 34-year-old had a leading role in a theatre project called Brexit Stage Left – a festival of plays held in January and partly funded from a £1billion EU cultural project.
Did the couple record the bust-up, then, because they hoped to inflict on the Boris bandwagon a damaging blow? No, says Mr Penn. The truth was they were genuinely concerned that something ‘dangerous’ might be happening in the flat.
In fairness to him, it did sound quite a quarrel. Another neighbour said she had ‘never heard anything like it’. But as it transpired, there was nothing sinister unfolding inside the Symonds-Johnson first-floor flat in Camberwell, South-East London. And certainly by the time police arrived, peace had been restored. Joking ensued. All was well.
But the brief episode, which also reflects, perhaps, our poisonous political times, does raise questions. Most curious of all is what the couple did – and why they did it – after they were assured by police that there was nothing to worry about, that no one was hurt, no crime had been committed and that there was no cause for further action.
At this point many in their position might have slunk away, faintly embarrassed they had dropped their neighbours (with whom they share a tiny communal landing) in it with police.
Yet instead of letting the matter rest, Mr Penn rang The Guardian. Not just to tip off the paper, but to tell his story, a detailed account of the night’s events.
Were the couple hoping to make a few quid? Hardly. The Guardian doesn’t normally engage in chequebook journalism and, in any case, they don’t appear hard-up. Ms Leigh was raised in a £15 million New York home and her father was American composer Mitch Leigh, who wrote the 1965 Broadway musical Man Of La Mancha, which included the huge hit The Impossible Dream. According to Mr Penn, they rang the paper because the matter was of ‘important public interest’.
The unfortunate events might possibly never have happened were it not for Mr Johnson’s runaway success in the Tory leadership race. On Thursday, he saw off arch rival Michael Gove to leave him facing Jeremy Hunt, over whom he has a commanding lead.
Might he have had a night off his alcohol-free diet to celebrate? It would seem so.
A loud altercation – involving red wine – between Mr Johnson and Miss Symonds could be heard coming from their flat after midnight. According to The Guardian, which has listened to the recording, Mr Johnson was heard refusing to leave the flat and telling his girlfriend to ‘get off my f ****** laptop’ before a loud crashing noise. The paper claimed that Symonds then said Johnson had ruined the sofa with red wine. ‘You just don’t care for anything because you are spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.’
Friends of Mr Johnson and Ms Symonds told The Mail on Sunday the laptop was being used to search the internet for solutions to remove wine stains from upholstery.
At first Mr Penn and Ms Leigh weren’t named by The Guardian, which initially tried to disguise Mr Penn’s gender. The paper reported that the couple called police as a last resort after receiving no response from inside the flat. It quoted Mr Penn, who was waiting for a takeaway, as saying: ‘I’d heard the screaming and shouting that sounded like it was from the street before I went to get my food. It became clear as I returned that it was coming from inside.’ The recording, he said, was made ‘purely out of instinct’. He added: ‘I had my
‘The police had their time wasted’
phone on me because I’d gone to pick up a Deliveroo so I was on the phone to the Deliveroo driver.
‘If I saw someone who I thought was in danger on the street I would start filming while seeking help. I was inside my own flat hearing shouting, screaming and banging so I pressed record.
‘It felt like if there was something dangerous happening that having a recording of it would be important as evidence. The screaming maxed out the volume of the microphone on my phone through two doors, which is why we became concerned.’
After the couple dialled 999, police in two cars and a van arrived in minutes, but left after receiving assurances the altercation was over. The Mail on Sunday understands that one officer even joked that the couple had done well to remove the wine stain.
Yesterday, an ally of Mr Johnson claimed ‘the police had their time wasted and they knew it at the time’. Former leadership candidate James Cleverly said ‘the big element of the Boris story isn’t that they had a heated argument, it’s that the police were called by the same person who recorded Boris and gave the story to The Guardian’. Another neighbour in the building said: ‘It concerns us that someone inside the house has been recording things. I am sorry Boris and Carrie have had to put up with this nonsense.’
Last night, a friend of Mr Johnson and Ms Symonds said: ‘Carrie really doesn’t feel safe in her own home any more with anti-Boris leaflets and posters stuck up on the road, hand-delivered hate mail and now her private conversations being taped through the walls.’
Not only did the couple record the altercation, it also emerged yesterday that they took the trouble to record police officers at the scene – and take down the registration numbers of their cars, all of which they passed to The Guardian.
The paper reported: ‘When police attended the scene, an officer could be heard on the radio asking a colleague to “restrict it”.’
In his statement last night, Mr Penn said: ‘In the early hours of Friday morning, I answered a phone call from a takeaway food delivery driver. At the same time, I heard what sounded like shouting coming from the street. I went downstairs, on the phone to the driver, and collected my food.
‘On the way back into my flat, it became clear that the shouting was coming from a neighbour’s flat. It was loud enough and angry enough that I felt frightened and concerned for the welfare of those involved, so I went inside my own home, closed the door, and pressed record on the voice memos app on my phone. After a loud scream and banging, followed by silence, I ran upstairs, and with my wife agreed that we should check on our neighbours. I knocked three times at their front door, but there was no response. I went back upstairs into my flat, and we agreed that we should call the police.
‘The police arrived within five minutes. Our call was made anonymously, and no names were given to the police. They called back to thank us for reporting, and to let us know that nobody was harmed. Once clear that no one was harmed, I contacted The Guardian, as I felt it was of important public interest. I, along with a lot of my neighbours across London, voted to remain within the EU. That is the extent of my involvement in politics.’