Ken Livingstone has demanded that Conservative Assembly Member Richard Barnes provide evidence of a “malicious” phone call which led to him last week telling the Assembly that the Mayor or his office had been informed by 3pm on Friday 22 July 2005 that the person shot at Stockwell was not a terrorist.
During questioning of Sir Ian Blair Mr Barnes said: “I’ve been told from somebody within the Mayor’s Office that he was told at or around 3 o’clock. I’ve even been given a name of the individual who made that phone-call…”
The claim of evidence of wrongdoing was repeated by fellow AM Tony Arbour who said: “You have heard today, from Richard Barnes, that we have evidence that someone from your office told the Mayor at 3 o’clock that a mistake had been made.”
At the time Mayor Livingstone demanded that the pair withdraw what he called “serious false allegations” adding “In fact I was not informed that the person shot was entirely innocent on the day at all. No Director in the Mayor’s Office or my Chief of Staff received such information on the day of the shooting, nor has it been possible to locate any junior member of staff who had.”
When asked last week about the claims a spokesman for the Conservative group on the Assembly told MayorWatch the pair would not be “saying anything more on this until Sir Ian has provided answers to the question.”
However in an email sent today to Baroness Hamwee, Chair of the Assembly, Mr Barnes wrote: “I now know when the Mayor was told and clearly the phone call made to me was malicious.”
This latest development has led to the Mayor accusing the AMs of making “false statements that misled the Assembly.”
Mr Livingstone added “Richard Barnes’s statements today provide more questions than answers” and said if the Assembly member had received a malicious phone call “he clearly has a duty to provide the details of this phone-call as it is a serious matter.”
“It is claimed by Richard Barnes that staff working for the Greater London Authority have made a malicious phone-call to a member of the Assembly and this simply cannot be allowed to pass – he must provide the name of this person and the content of their allegation. However, if he did not receive the phone call, this would be an even more serious claim, constituting an attack on staff at City Hall, and he should withdraw this claim too.”
The Mayor attacked Mr Barnes for his handling of the original claims saying he”had a duty to seek to verify his claim before he laid his charge at the Assembly meeting, but instead he chose to launch it during questioning to the Commissioner, even though in over two years since the Stockwell incident this claim had never surfaced before, for the reason that it was palpably false.”
Mr Livingstone has also written to Anthony Mayor, Chief Executive of the Greater London Authority, asking him to “look into this matter and provide for me the details of the person who made this phone call to Richard Barnes and the content of their statements to him.”
