Dial S for Scandal

Following yesterday’s double reports of Conservatives in trouble with the police (in Slough and Swansea) today brings news of a third legal incident involving the Conservative Party. This time, it’s Sutton. (What is it about places starting with an S?)

The time: Wednesday 16 April, approximately 3pm
The place: near a front door in the London Borough of Sutton

An aggrieved resident takes up the story:

“I was watering plants in the space near our front door when I heard the sound of the letterbox flap. I looked round to see a hand take out the [Liberal Democrat] Sutton Gazette … I waited for it to be pushed back in again with whatever the person who took it out was delivering, but only a Conservative election pamphlet appeared. I opened the door, and asked ‘Could I have that back please?’. The gentleman turned around and handed it back (he had one other Gazette in his hands), saying ‘It fell out’. I then went back inside, quite stunned, and turned back again to say ‘This really isn’t on, is it’. He then said again that it had fallen out, and walked on. There was another gentleman delivering, also holding a few (about 2, 3) Gazettes. My husband then went out and took [photographs] and confirmed that he also saw Sutton Gazettes in the pocket of the conservative pamphleteer in the photographs … I stress that the Gazette was definitely taken out of our door, and it had *not* fallen out … I was and am quite angry at this, so yes, I can confirm this with anyone necessary.”

Investigations are, as they say, continuing. One of the people featured in the photographs is Steve O’Connell, the Conservative GLA candidate for Croydon and Sutton.

A curio from the local newspaper coverage of the story:

Mr O’Connell, Croydon Council’s cabinet member for public protection, denied he had ever taken Liberal Democrat literature out of a letter box.

“It is something I personally have never done. However, there are a lot of people doing stuff for me.

“This is very clearly not referring to me, although we have been up there delivering. I am not aware of any confrontation or any row.”

Now that last sentence – “I am not aware…” – puzzles me. According to the resident quoted above, someone came out and photographed Steve O’Connell from a short distance, and the photographs certainly look to have been taken from close up. Personally, if someone came up to me and photographed me, I’d ask them what it was all about. So what happened in this case?