A former chairman of the South Tees Conservative Association has accused an MP of pulling strings to help the police and crime commissioner get on the ballot.
Lee Holmes has claimed Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Simon Clarke helped Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Steve Turner after his application was rejected.
Mr Holmes tweeted: “I understand that Simon pulled strings within the party to have his office manager Steve Turner’s application for the party’s PCC candidate list approved, following its initial rejection.”
Mr Holmes, who previously stood as a Conservative council candidate in Ladgate ward in Middlesbrough, added: “I raised the issue with how Steve Turner became a PCC candidate with the party.
They were not willing to engage on how it happened. I couldn’t understand how they could allow a PCC candidate to get on the list without asking certain questions about their previous involvement with the police, like whether you have been arrested, cautioned, or charged.”
He went on to add: “It’s all very murky, I can’t understand, with a party as thorough as the Conservative Party, how someone with that in their background got on the candidates’ list.” The IOPC has previously explained there was no legal requirement for Mr Turner to reveal a caution from the 1990s during the election process.
Read more: Cleveland PCC Steve Turner cleared of sexual assault allegation
Last year, Middlesbrough MP Andy McDonald used parliamentary privilege to claim Mr Turner was “sacked in the early 2000s for systematic theft of merchandise from his then-employer, Safeway supermarket”. Mr Turner, a former UKIP councillor in Redcar before switching to the Conservatives, initially told Mr McDonald to retract his “unsubstantiated” claims but did then follow up with an open letter to provide “further information and clarification”.
In it, he accepted he had received a police caution, from more than 20 years ago, in the 1990s after handling stolen goods worth £15 while a manager at a supermarket. However, he said that he was never sacked and he had voluntarily resigned.
Mr Turner added: “The insight it provided me on how people can make stupid mistakes informs the way I operate as a PCC. I trust that the people of Teesside place this minor incident, which occurred in the last century, in its proper context; a stupid error and they support me in getting on with the job to which I was elected in a landslide.”
Mr Clarke said there were concerns Mr Turner’s application would not be progressed due to a technical aspect surrounding a written test. The MP added: “Steve’s candidacy was in doubt of being taken forward owing to a technical aspect of the party’s selection process.
“This was nothing to do with any suggestion regarding Steve’s character. It was following a written exercise which was assessed by CCHQ staff from outside Teesside.
Conservatives from across the Cleveland Police force area agreed that it was our collective view that Steve was a credible candidate to go forward to our members and messaged the party to that effect.
“The party agreed and when party members from across the Cleveland Police area were given the opportunity to select their candidate for Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner, they chose Steve by an overwhelming margin.” Mr Turner queried Mr Holmes’ motives because the former Conservative had applied for the parliamentary candidates’ list but was rejected.
He added: “Lee [Holmes] is a bitter ex-Conservative chair of the association. I was elected overwhelmingly by party members after a rigorous selection process. I had all the support of all of the local MPs and the elected Conservatives, who all wrote to the party and said they thought I’d be the right candidate and it should go forward for a membership vote. There were no questions about my character or anything else.”
When asked whether his application had been rejected, he said: “No, I went through a rigorous selection process. There were elements I did well on and elements I didn’t do so well on, like other candidates.” Mr Holmes said he was left frustrated after not making it onto the parliamentary candidates’ list. He was told this was because he referred to Boris Johnson as a buffoon on social media in 2018.
Mr Holmes added: “I am aggrieved because I applied for the parliamentary candidates’ list and I was rejected without an assessment centre and I have done a lot of work for the party locally on a purely voluntary basis over the last three years.”
Mr Turner was elected as the Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner in May 2021.
The Conservative Party has been contacted for comment.
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