BRITAIN: London's colourful mayor, Mr Ken Livingstone (57), fighting accusations of assault that could see him removed from office, denied yesterday that he was drunk at a party and shoved a man down a staircase.
BCalled to a special meeting before the city's governing body, the London Assembly, the outspoken socialist mayor labelled a newspaper report that he attacked a man at a north London party as a lie.
"I had three glasses of white wine at a party . . . I didn't push the man, nobody pushed him. He fell and it was an accident," Mr Livingstone, London's first elected mayor, told more than 20 members of the assembly and a throng of reporters.
"In 21 years of public life there is not a single story linking me to violence or drunkenness . . . the Evening Standard's campaign is a distasteful lie," he said.
The story broke when the Evening Standard newspaper - part of the British press pack that rarely spares the horses when chasing a target - reported that Mr Livingstone manhandled his pregnant girlfriend and assaulted a 35-year-old man at a party in May.
Robin Hedges, an art editor at the Evening Standard magazine, suffered serious head, back and hip injuries after falling 15 feet from a stairwell at the birthday party.
The paper said he was shoved by the mayor, but Mr Livingstone stood by a different version of events.
"Robin Hedges came running around a corner as I was leaving the party because he thought I was attacking my girlfriend Emma for smoking . . . He jumped me and brought me to the ground," Mr Livingstone said.
"We went back to the house and up the staircase. I looked back and saw him leaning over the edge and then I heard a woman's voice saying that somebody had fallen over." Assembly members questioned Mr Livingstone for more than an hour.
Mr Livingstone told the panel there were no drugs at the party and that he never struck his girlfriend, Ms Emma Beal, who has also denied she was attacked.
The assembly resolved not to send the case to the Standards Board of England - a body that could remove him from office.
"This is not a court of law and we cannot investigate these very serious allegations," a London Assembly spokesman said.
"As far as we are concerned, this issue is buried for now . . . but any fresh evidence or allegations and we'll have to take another look," he said.
Mr Livingstone became London's first elected mayor in 2000 after defying the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, and the Labour Party hierarchy by running as an independent.
"I am not going to sue the paper and at the end of the day Londoners will judge who is telling the truth and I am happy for that to be the case," he said.
Police said they are continuing to investigate the incident.
- (Reuters)