A Beacon of Hope and a Fight for Survival, by Andrew Gilligan, This is London, July 4, 2008

A Beacon of Hope and a Fight for Survival

By Andrew Gilligan
This is London
July 4, 2008

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23508152-details/A+beacon+of+hope+and+a+fight+for+survival/article.do

Ray Lewis was widely hailed as Boris Johnson's most exciting appointment when he became Mayor. Unconventional and no-nonsense, he came from a fatherless, delinquent childhood in a bedsit to become first a priest, then a prison governor and pioneering rescuer of derailed black boys.

Maverick: Ray Lewis

His Eastside Young Leaders' Academy, started with £20,000 of his own savings, has become a model for Conservative social policy, with dozens of at-risk youngsters saved from exclusion, gangs and criminality through a regime of traditional discipline, uniforms and drill.

As London child stabbings climbed, Mr Lewis looked like an inspired choice as Boris's deputy mayor for young people. He seemed ideally placed to tackle the issue which Boris put at the heart of his election campaign. Now, however, amid damaging allegations of sexual and financial misconduct, Mr Lewis faces something even more urgent: a battle for his own political survival.

Boris Johnson's first serious crisis is a potentially defining moment in his young mayoralty. But like all such alleged scandals it has already started to become complicated. Here, the Evening Standard unravels the threads of the story and looks ahead to what will happen next.

What are the allegations?

WHEN he was vicar of St Matthew's, West Ham, from 1993-97, Mr Lewis is alleged to have borrowed £29,000 from a parishioner, Mary Massey, and failed to pay it back when she wanted it. The money was allegedly repaid only many years later, after Ms Massey involved the police.

It is also alleged that he borrowed a further £16,000 from two people, one a man with learning disabilities, and has never repaid it. There is also said to be a "dormant file" at the Chelmsford diocese, in which West Ham falls, with unspecified "sexual allegations" against Mr Lewis.

The Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Rev John Gladwin, yesterday said that in 1999, following "serious misdemeanours", Mr Lewis was "placed under the formal disciplinary structures of the Church of England and his ministry was restricted".

His name was placed on the so-called "Lambeth List" banning him from practising as a priest. There are some more recent claims that Mr Lewis's school, the Eastside Young Leaders' Academy, operated an "abusive regime" towards pupils.

The Mayor, Boris Johnson, will today set up an independent inquiry under the former head of the Prison Service, Martin Narey, to investigate the charges.

What is Mr Lewis's response?

HE SAYS all the allegations are totally "without grounds, malicious and an attempt to smear me" and he had never even heard of any of them until yesterday. "Never once have [any of] the charges been put to me." He call the sexual misconduct allegations "complete rubbish" and says "this is the first I've heard about them". He says he is on friendly terms with Ms Massey, who now works in his school, and she has no complaint about him. He said he "never" borrowed money from any parishioner and was "not aware of the Church suspending me... I'm not aware of being put on any list".

Can this possibly be true?

CONTRARY to Mr Lewis's denials, at least one man in the church hierarchy seems to have raised concerns with him about Ms Massey's £29,000. Michael Fox, then archdeacon of West Ham - in crude terms Mr Lewis's immediate superior - told the BBC he emailed Mr Lewis outlining his concerns after Ms Massey complained to him. Mr Fox now accuses Mr Lewis of "exploiting" his congregation.

It is just about possible that a police inquiry could have been started without Mr Lewis's knowledge. It is also just possible that, in that rather English way, the decision to bar Mr Lewis from the priesthood could have been taken without telling him, particularly since by 1999 Mr Lewis had left the priesthood of his own free will and did not attempt to return.

City Hall sources said today that the Church had assured them that Mr Lewis hadn't been told. No one has yet produced documentary evidence that Mr Lewis knew about his barring. Yesterday the Bishop of Chelmsford would only say yesterday that he was "sure" Mr Lewis "must" have been told.

But if a "formal disciplinary" process was indeed instituted against Mr Lewis, it seems unlikely that he was not told. And over the course of Mr Lewis's TV appearances yesterday, some potential inconsistencies in his story developed.

What are those potential inconsistencies?

MR LEWIS adamantly told a press conference he "never" borrowed money from Ms Massey or any other parishioner but later told BBC London: "That money's been paid back with interest and Mary and I continue to be good friends."

Pressed about the difference between the two accounts, he said that Ms Massey had entrusted him with some of her money, but it was an "invest[ment] in some property together" not a loan. " Borrowing is not quite the same as what I've described." Whether it is the same will be a key question for the Narey inquiry - and did Mr Lewis put any of his own money into this investment?

In another interview, Mr Lewis also seemed to backtrack on his claim that nobody had ever raised concerns with him before yesterday. Asked "You're telling us that ... you were never aware that any archdeacon, bishop or anyone else ever had the slightest misgiving about your behaviour?", he replied: "I'm not saying that. I'm saying to you that I'm not aware of being struck off any list."

How serious is this for Boris?

MR LEWIS was Boris's first and in many ways keynote appointment and occupies the office next to his. The most specific allegation - the Massey loan - seems in itself not that serious, even if true, because it is about something that supposedly happened more than 10 years ago and has been resolved to the complainant's apparent satisfaction.

Unlike the Lee Jasper affair, no City Hall money is involved and none of the alleged irregularities took place on Boris's watch. None of this morning's national papers have given the story vast prominence.

However, following the resignation of James McGrath two weeks ago, this could feed into a narrative of an accident-prone administration. The newspapers will be picking over Mr Lewis's past and there are several ways it could become very damaging indeed for Boris.

First, if the more serious (but so far unspecified) allegations about abuse, sexual misconduct and so on come into sharper focus. Second, if Mr Lewis is shown to have lied. And third, if doubt is cast on Boris's judgment in recruiting Mr Lewis, in not checking him out thoroughly and in backing him in this crisis without making sure his story is true.

Did Boris do thorough checks before he hired Mr Lewis?

IT'S NOT clear that he did. In May, Mr Lewis told the Standard that the job offer to become Deputy Mayor was made to him only the day before it was announced to the public - and came as a "total surprise"-This would seem to preclude-any thorough interrogation of Mr Lewis about whether he had anything in his past that could embarrass City Hall. The Mayor's office pointed out today that Mr Lewis had passed all the checks needed to work with children, become a magistrate, and join the prison service. But those checks are to weed out potential criminals, not political embarrassment.

Is Boris getting his response to the crisis right?

BORIS has learned one important lesson from Ken Livingstone's mistakes in the Lee Jasper affair. Unlike Mr Livingstone, he has launched an independent inquiry straight away. Nor has he been openly dismissive of the story in the way Mr Livingstone was.

However, he appears to have repeated another of Ken's mistakes by not suspending Mr Lewis pending the outcome of the inquiry. As with Mr Jasper, this could prove disastrously embarrassing if any wrongdoing is found.

Will the inquiry be truly independent?

MR NAREY is a respected figure with no ties to the GLA. But as head of the Prison Service between 1998 and 2003, one of his employees between 2000 and 2001 was Mr Lewis, a junior prison governor.

Is this a political vendetta?

MR LEWIS'S Eastside Young Leaders' Academy uses a tough, traditional approach - uniforms, drill and raised voices - to achieve apparently considerable success with its troubled students.

It is clearly a challenge to the conventional statist and liberal methods of the educational establishment, and it is possible that they could damn such a regime as "abusive", even if no actual abuse whatever has taken place.

Any work with volatile, troubled children is inherently risky, and problems could be exploited by those opposed to the school's methods. Unlike state agencies, Mr Lewis makes a virtue of not keeping his distance from his students and is not afraid to get his hands dirty. To many, this is admirable; to others, it may be seen as risky.

It is also perhaps suspicious that three news organisations - Channel 4, the BBC and the Guardian, the latter with a fierce anti-Johnson agenda - simultaneously started making inquiries. City Hall sources mutter darkly about the effort being orchestrated by political opponents.

However, the fact is that Mr Lewis's main accuser is a bishop, not a political enemy of Boris with an axe to grind. Complaints about political vendettas risk sounding suspiciously like the Lee Jasper defence.

What are the broader implications of all this?

ENORMOUS. Ray Lewis is totemic for the Conservative Party's whole approach to social policy. He was the first person David Cameron visited on his election as party leader.

For the Tories, Eastside Young Leaders' Academy symbolises the no-bullshit, grassroots-based, voluntarist approach to social problems they want to elevate over the current, allegedly remote, sluggish and ineffective state provision.

That, according to Mr Lewis's supporters, is one of the very reasons he is under attack: the priggish forces of bureaucracy are fighting to retain their choke-hold over the disadvantaged.

Mr Johnson describes the Ray Lewis affair as part of a "cultural war" about the very idea of society. If Mr Lewis goes down, it may be seen as a victory for the conventional, cautious approach to social problems, and set back the prospects for maverick, gifted amateurs.