Four Labour activists have been charged over events surrounding the party’s controversial 2023 Croydon East parliamentary selection. Evidence has emerged of how one of them had been part of a concerted campaign to close Inside Croydon
Court out: Carole Bonner, the former Croydon councillor who was a devoted member of ‘Newman’s Numpties’
Croydon’s “Infamous Four” – Joel and Shila Bodmer, former councillor Carole Bonner and Gabriel Levy – were at Westminster Magistrates Court yesterday to hear charges relating to cybercrime and data breaches alleged to have occurred during the Labour Party’s parliamentary selection for the Croydon East seat in 2023.
Inside Croydon broke the story almost three years ago of how Bodmer, seeking to be selected as a candidate for parliament, had been implicated in making changes to the local party’s membership database in order to confer some advantage in the ballot.
Yesterday’s court proceedings took less than two minutes.
Joel Bodmer, 40, his wife Shila Bodmer, 41, Leroy, 24, and Bonner, 69, appeared only to confirm their names, dates of birth and addresses.
They have been charged with conspiracy to commit an offence under Section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Act 1977 and Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
Joel Bodmer has also been charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to allegedly altering phone records.
The Labour Party suspended the memberships of all four almost two years ago. Gabriel Levy was a Labour councillor in Southend until July 2024, when he resigned in circumstances which were unexplained at the time. It appears likely that his resignation was linked to the police investigation into the Croydon East case, and his suspension by his party. In court, Leroy gave an address in Southwark.
Happy days: Joel Bodmer (third from right) out campaigning with Croydon Labour colleagues in around 2022, at a time when he was chair of the Local Campaign Forum, in charge of election funds and selections
Bodmer, an official with trade union Unison, has been on a prolonged period of unpaid leave.
“These are incredibly serious charges,” said a Labour Party spokesperson.
“When complaints were first raised with the Labour Party we conducted a thorough internal investigation and we referred the matter to the police as soon as potential criminal wrongdoing was identified.”
Documentary evidence has recently emerged of how one of the accused, Bonner, had previously used her position within Croydon Labour to attack this website’s Editor and try to get Inside Croydon shut down.
And while the Labour Party makes all the right noises about the “incredibly serious charges” as it tries to distance itself from the Infamous Four, it was senior figures within the Labour Party who backed and installed Bonner to a controlling and influential position in the new Croydon East Constituency Labour Party, without any say from local members.
Questions of judgement: Pearleen Sangha had a hand in the appointment of Carole Bonner in Croydon East. Sangha is now an adviser to the Chancellor
Three years ago, Labour’s London region was being run by Pearleen Sangha, a long-time associate of Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff.
Sangha now works at HM Treasury, as Rachel Reeves’s “business adviser”.
In 2023, Bonner was appointed by Labour’s London region at the new CLP for Croydon East (following boundary changes) to oversee membership and the selection process. Bonner was a councillor for Fieldway ward in New Addington until 2018, and was a loyal supporter of then council leader Tony Newman. Her ward colleague was Siimon Hall, the former cabinet member for finance who was at the centre of the council’s bankruptcy in 2020.
Documents obtained in the massive leak of Labour Party data which led to the Al Jazeera programme The Labour Files included correspondence from Bonner from 2017 to Neil Fleming, one of Sangha’s predecessors as Labour’s director of London region.
The email, dated October 4 2017, was copied to Newman, Jack Buck (Croydon Labour’s paid organiser, who was involved in other selection stitch-ups and cover-ups of misconduct by councillors), and Martin Tiedemann, a Labour employee and councillor in Lambeth.
Bonner wanted to make a complaint. About Steven Downes, the Editor of Inside Croydon, then a member of the Labour Party, who – unmentioned in Bonner’s email – was democratically selected by members to be a candidate in the 2018 local elections (it’s a long story… but sometimes, to get evidence of systematic abuse, you have to “go undercover” and do some things which might make you feel a bit uneasy).
Bonner’s email included links to articles published that September and October: Newman faces complaints as Labour selection grinds to a halt, and ‘Stalinist’ Scott moves to censor charity’s Facebook page.
In the first article, Inside Croydon reported, “With Jeremy Corbyn’s insistence on the need for ‘competence’ in government ringing in his ears from the Labour Party conference, Tony ‘Soprano’ Newman, the leader of the Labour group on Croydon Council, now faces a showdown meeting next week.
“There, he is expected to have to deal with a batch of complaints alleging maladministration, malpractice, abuse of authority, fabrication of process and interference in the selection of candidates to stand in next May’s local elections.” Sound familiar?
The focus of the second article was Paul Scott, Newman’s best mate, a councillor in Woodside ward and the chair of the council’s planning committee. Scott, the director of a firm of architects, managed to go six years on Croydon Council, chairing planning meetings, without ever having to declare any interests, thanks to a “special dispensation” from… Newman.
Inside Croydon reported how Scott had shut down the Facebook page of a South Norwood charity, People for Portland Road, to stop residents from posting links to articles from Inside Croydon. At least one charity volunteer resigned as a result of Scott’s “Stalinist” actions.
I wish to make a complaint: Carole Bonner and the Labour Party have been trying to shut down Inside Croydon for more than a decade
According to Bonner, this reporting was “bringing the Labour Party into disrepute”.
Bonner was also at that time Buck’s line manager. According to Bonner, Buck, too, had been traduced.
“He,” Bonner wrote of Downes, “has accused Jack and other members of the party of corruption…”, which is a false and exaggerated accusation, but hey… “over the selection process which I do not believe can go unchallenged and I would expect disciplinary action to be taken against Steven Downes.
“It is unfair to make allegations about a member of staff who has no right of reply.” Which is, again, untrue.
Bonner referred to this “as a matter of urgency”.
Steven Downes was never contacted by Fleming or the Labour Party’s lawyers, never suspended nor subjected to any disciplinary action resulting from Bonner’s hysterical email complaint.
However, during one full council at Croydon Town Hall in the autumn of 2017, Newman and Scott absented themselves in the middle of proceedings to attend a special meeting convened by Labour’s Local Campaign Forum, where they summarily de-selected Downes as a council election candidate. Downes was never advised of the meeting, never told of the “charges” against him at this kangaroo court, nor given any opportunity to respond before the de-selection.
All tue: just what did Newman, Scott and Carole Bonner have to hide?
The decision was based on a report written by Jack Buck. The accusation was that Downes had written to local party members and told them he was… a journalist and Editor of Inside Croydon.
Had Downes continued as a Labour candidate at the 2018 local elections, he most probably will have had to close down Inside Croydon. Newman, Scott and Buck’s actions meant that that action was averted.
In 2021, Inside Croydon’s social media and emails were hacked, with stolen files handed over to Labour Party bosses, including the then party General Secretary, David Evans, and MP Steve Reed. One of those who handed over the stolen documents, Ruth Bannister, was elected as a Labour councillor in Southwark earlier this month.
Despite her Labour Party suspension in 2024, Carole Bonner had remained a group supervisor of Croydon Labour WhatsApp groups until last month..
After having the charges against her delivered at Westminster Magistrates yesterday, Bonner and her co-accused in the Infamous Four – Bodmer, Bodmer and Levy – are now on bail until a plea and trial preparation meeting at Southwark Crown Court on June 16.
Read more: The Fraud: how Reed’s Labour spied on Croydon councillors
Read more: Labour admits serious breach of private data in Croydon East
More Reed: Reed group fined for slow declaration of £800,000 donations
Read more: #TheLabourFiles: MP Reed, Evans and the Croydon connection
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