THE HEAD of an anti-bullying charity has said that she will produce evidence that British civil servants contacted her organisation because of their concerns about working in 10 Downing Street.
Top publicist Max Clifford, who normally represents celebrities, is to act for Christine Pratt, though he insisted last night that he will not be paid for advising her.
Last night, Mr Clifford said Ms Pratt and her husband, David, were now “going to get busy” by trawling through hundreds of e-mails received by the National Anti-Bullying Helpline to look for evidence for her claims, made on Sunday.
The involvement of Mr Clifford raises fears for the British government, which has responded harshly to Mr Pratt’s actions, that the controversy will drag into the weekend and longer.
Prime minister Gordon Brown was, however, defended by close ally schools secretary Ed Balls yesterday, who said that Mr Brown had been “deeply hurt” to be accused of behaving in an intimidatory way towards staff.
Mr Clifford said last night: “She wants to stand up and be counted and I’ve said: ‘The only way you’re going to change the public and the media’s perception is to come up with evidence of what you’ve been saying. Can you do that?’
“She and her husband have said: ‘Yes, we believe that we can.’ So I said: ‘Well, in that case, what you must do is keep your heads down until you’ve got that evidence which you feel establishes what you’ve been saying’.”
Four of the patrons of her organisation, including Cork-born Conservative Party councillor Mary O’Connor, have quit in protest at her decision to breach the confidentiality due to people who contact the helpline.
Ms O’Connor, who emigrated from Cork in 1960, is a Conservative councillor in Hillingdon in west London. She retired as a senior management nurse in 1999, and was awarded an MBE for her services to nursing in 2000.
Last night, Ms Pratt was scheduled to meet with four trustees – her husband is the fifth trustee – of the organisation to consider the situation, though it is not yet clear if she will come under pressure to resign.
One of the trustees, Roy Millard, said “the item on the agenda” will be the couple’s communications with the media in recent days: “We will be releasing a statement once the outcome of that meeting is known.”
Another organisation which seeks to help workers dealing with bullying, Bullying UK, has been forced to make clear that it has no links with Ms Pratt’s body, due to the number of contacts it has received from the public and the press.
Meanwhile, Labour junior minister Phil Woolas continued the stream of invective directed at Ms Pratt in recent days, describing her as “this prat of a woman” in an interview with a London radio station. “It’s a tough business, politics. It’s 18, 20 hours a day that people like the prime minister work. I think this attack on him by this prat of a woman down in – where’s she from, Swindon? – I think that’s backfiring on her.
“Most people think that Gordon Brown, even if they don’t agree with his politics, they think that he’s a decent man and I can tell you, in my experience, he’s a very decent man,” he told LBC radio.
Mr Brown has also been defended by his wife, Sarah: “Gordon’s the man that I know and the man that I love. People have heard me talk about him and they probably know everything that I would have to say about him.
“I know him as a strong, hard-working decent man and he isn’t anything else. What you see is what you get with him,” she told a morning television programme.