BRITAIN: The Mayor of London, Mr Ken Livingstone, says he will co-operate with police in a renewed investigation into an alleged drunken brawl which left a party-goer unconscious and requiring brain scans, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
Police yesterday confirmed they would speak again to Mr Robin Hedges (31), after he dramatically changed his version of events at a 40th birthday party last month which resulted in his falling 15 ft down a stairwell into a basement.
Mr Hedges originally cleared anyone else of involvement and told police he did not wish to make a criminal allegation against Mr Livingstone when they first interviewed him on June 15th.
On Thursday, however, Mr Hedges said he had decided to speak out after the mayor made a statement to the London Assembly on Wednesday referring simply to "an accident" which had occurred at the party and dismissing as "scurrilous" a series of reports about the affair in the London Evening Standard.
The Labour chairman, Mr Trevor Philips, is to reconvene the assembly on Wednesday or Thursday of next week to consider the mayor's statement "in the light of subsequent reports challenging the veracity of his explanation."
The assembly has the power to censure Mr Livingstone, while he could also be referred to the Standards Board for England, which could suspend or bar him from office for up to five years.
Mr Hedges, who reportedly works for the Standard, says he was pressurised by the mayor's office into declaring his fall an accident when in fact he had been involved in a scuffle with Mr Livingstone seconds before.
This followed an alleged row between Mr Livingstone and his pregnant partner, Ms Emma Beal, during which Mr Hedges now says the mayor was "uncontrollable."
In his signed statement on Thursday, he said: "It is time for the truth to come out. I believe as a result of Ken's action I plunged over the wall. He was uncontrollable. All we were trying to do was calm him down and restrain him. We were worried about Emma's safety." Mr Livingstone yesterday denied being drunk at the party and insisted he had only three glasses of wine over a period of seven hours. Asked if he could remember everything which had taken place, the mayor replied: "That's something I will deal with when I see the police, if they are going to investigate it."