Tatler Tory’s sick taunts over suicide victim at ‘Sopranos’ Crabshack ambush
TATLER TORY SCANDAL TEARING THE PARTY APART
DISGRACED ‘Tatler Tory’ Mark Clarke mocked suicide victim Elliott Johnson in a terrifying ambush of one of the tragic activist’s friends last week.
In an intimidating encounter likened to a scene from TV mafia show The Sopranos, Clarke, aided by two burly henchmen and his mistress, cornered their victim, another Conservative campaigner, in a Chelsea restaurant.
They had tricked Patrick Sullivan into the showdown, and spent an intense 90 minutes trying to strongarm him into withdrawing claims that he, too, had been bullied by Clarke.
At one point the shamed aide appeared to mock Mr Johnson, who was found dead on railway tracks in Bedfordshire in September after Clarke had subjected him to a campaign of intimidation. Trying to portray himself as a ‘victim’ after being banned from the Tories following allegations of blackmail, sexual assault and revenge pornography, Clarke said: ‘If I laid across a railway track I’d be a hero.’
The comment was last night blasted as ‘sick and despicable’ by Mr Johnson’s father Ray. It came after Clarke, his acolytes Andre Walker and Will Hanley, and mistress India Brummitt duped Mr Sullivan into meeting them at the Big Easy Bar-B-Q & Crabshack on the Kings Road on Monday.
In a darkened corner, they subjected him to a ‘kangaroo court’ during which they are believed to have used a secret tape recorder to try to trick him into retracting claims that he had been bullied by Clarke, who earned his ‘Tatler Tory’ nickname after being tipped as a future Tory Minister by the magazine.
Sullivan, one of the last people to see 21-year-old Mr Johnson alive, evaded the ‘verbal traps’ by tricking Clarke into thinking he was getting drunk.
The astonishing incident came 48 hours after the scandal forced Clarke’s ally, Grant Shapps, to quit as International Development Minister. There is now mounting pressure for Party chairman Lord Feldman to stand down too.
Mr Sullivan, 30, told The Mail on Sunday: ‘It was like a scene from The Sopranos. They ambushed me and tried to fool me into saying Clarke was not a bully.
‘I played dumb and made them think I was drinking heavily like them – in fact I had told the waitress to make my cocktails non-alcoholic.’
Sullivan says that while Clarke threatened him, Ms Brummitt revelled in her lover’s notoriety. ‘She said she was keeping a record of all the times he was in the papers. They were like gangsters, him intimidating me while his moll befriended me, backed up by nasty sidekicks.’
However, Clarke last night vehemently denied this version of events, telling The Mail on Sunday: ‘Your story is false and defamatory from start to finish. I have three witnesses who will corroborate this.’
According to Sullivan, the crony who plotted the ambush, Will Hanley, Commons aide to Tory MP Nigel Adams, knew he was on anti-depressants as a result of his shock at the death of his friend. Sullivan is also furious at the role played by Andre Walker, ex-aide to MP David Morris, who was caught bullying Mr Johnson with Clarke before his suicide.
‘When Elliott died he left a note saying he had been bullied by Clarke and betrayed by Walker. The same happened to me, except I was betrayed by Hanley too,’ said Sullivan. ‘I thought Hanley was a pal.’
Fellow Tory activist Steven George-Hilley said last night: ‘It beggars belief that Clarke is still behaving like this. I congratulate Patrick for having the guts to defy him.’
Elliott Johnson’s father Ray echoed the sentiment saying: ‘I hope brave Mr Sullivan will inspire other victims to come forward.’
It is not the first time Hanley and Walker have been accused of being involved in Clarke’s dirty work. It was at a party Hanley’s house in Hurlingham Road, Fulham, that one of Clarke’s female victims was allegedly subjected to a ‘sting’ to try to catch her snorting cocaine on film.
In 2010, the Daily Mirror published a photograph purporting to be Mr Hanley snorting the banned drug, Meow Meow at the Tory conference.
Clarke first targeted Sullivan, who runs the Tory think-tank Parliament Street, after he helped another bullying victim, Sarah-Jane Sewell in January. Soon afterwards, Clarke confronted Sullivan in the Kosmopol Bar in Chelsea. ‘He shouted at me, “You’re dead, my real friends would take a bullet for me – you wouldn’t.”, Sullivan says. ‘He said he’d destroy me – just as he did to Elliott.’
Sullivan’s anguish intensified after the death of Mr Johnson on September 15. The night before they had both been at a Parliament Street event at the Commons and afterwards both went for a drink and a meal at Westminster’s Red Lion pub.
After learning that his friend had killed himself the next day, Mr Sullivan was racked with grief. ‘It brought back what Clarke did to me,’ he says. ‘I was put on anti-depressants.’
As the extent of Clarke’s bullying emerged, Mr Sullivan was named in the press as being one of the accusers. Clarke struck back at 9.30pm on Monday.
Sullivan had arranged to meet Hanley – who he had considered a friend – alone at the Crabshack.
‘A car pulled up and Will got out, followed by Mark, Andre and India. Mark said, “How are you when you aren’t screwing me in the press?”
‘I couldn’t believe Will had tricked me. I thought about doing a runner but had nothing to be ashamed of so I joined them inside. Mark had a table in a dark corner.
‘He put a computer on the table at an angle and his phone too. It was obvious he was recording me – he talked conspicuously loudly and directly at his equipment. He wanted to get me to say he hadn’t bullied me. I was so nervous, I didn’t even unbutton my jacket. They were all drinking alcohol and they thought I was too. But I knew I had to keep calm. I gave a series of mumbled replies.
‘He talked like an amateur hoodlum saying, “It would be awful for me to break bread with you if you have betrayed me behind my back. I’ve never bullied you, have I?” They thought I was the weak link but I outfoxed them.’ ’
Mr Sullivan says that by about 11pm, Clarke’s smiles turned to scowls, apparently irked by his ‘victim’s’ refusal to buckle under pressure. ‘As he left, he even gave me a gangster style hug: he reached one hand towards mine to shake and put the other round my shoulder. They do that in movies – and then shoot them,’ said Mr Sullivan.
And to add insult to injury, Clarke and his cohorts tried to get Mr Sullivan to pick up the £300 bill.
‘He wanted me to say he was innocent, but I didn’t. I only wish I had spoken out about Mark Clarke much sooner.’