ALEX Rowley did not tell Scottish Labour last month the police had contacted him in connection with a complaint made against him by a former partner, it emerged last night.
As the party defended its handling of allegations against the former deputy leader, which appeared in a daily newspaper on Wednesday, it released a statement saying it did not have sufficient information to launch an investigation when first contacted by other newspapers several weeks ago.
It also published a letter by Rowley to the party’s general secretary Brian Roy, sent on Wednesday, in which he stated he had been contacted by the police on October 10 and was advised by his lawyer “that because the police clearly took the view that there was no case to answer I did not have to take action”.
He refuted the allegations against him, said he was confident he would be cleared and referred himself to the party’s head of complaint.
“The party was approached by newspapers with unsubstantiated claims, with no evidence shared with the Labour Party prior to publication in The Sun newspaper,” a Scottish Labour statement said.
“Whilst the party could not formally investigate these claims in the absence of evidence and a complaint, they were put to Mr Rowley, who completely refuted them. As noted in Mr Rowley’s letter, he did not disclose to the party police contact on October 10, 2017.”
In his letter Rowley said: “On October 10 this year I was contacted by Police Scotland in relation to a complaint that was made against me almost four years ago.
“Until October 10 I had no knowledge whatsoever that this complaint had ever been made. The police told me that after looking at the complaint at the time it was made, they deemed it not necessary to inform me that it had happened and certainly never questioned me about the accusation either formally or informally.
“The reason they were now informing me was that they had been contacted by a newspaper asking if such a complaint had ever been made. The police said it was now their duty to tell me about this complaint. I have since that point been acting on my lawyer’s advice in this matter.
“I was advised that because the police clearly took the view that there was no case to answer I did not have to take action.”
Following the revelations, Rowley stood aside as interim leader and was later suspended from the parliamentary group after calls for his suspension by leadership candidates Anas Sarwar and Richard Leonard, as well as the party’s previous leader, Kezia Dugdale.
Rowley, who is associated with the left wing on the party, previously worked as an education official for the TUC, and acted as election agent for the former prime minister Gordon Brown for five years.
He became a MSP in 2014 after winning the Cowdenbeath by-election following the death of the Labour MSP Helen Eadie. The constituency was taken by the SNP’s Annabelle Ewing in May 2016 with Rowley retaining a Holyrood seat by securing automatic top ranking of Labour’s Mid Scotland and Fife list through his deputy leader post.
The former Fife Council leader was elected Scottish Labour’s deputy leader in 2015, beating centrist candidates Gordon Matheson, former leader of Glasgow city council and former MSP Richard Baker.
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