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Bradley Backs Down Over Daily Post Lies

Liverpool subCulture | 25.01.2008 11:09 | Liverpool

Warren Bradley has been forced to back down in his row with the Daily Post over their reporting of his secret meeting with Lee Forde.

By throwing in the towel, the ‘bang-to-rights’ fireman has virtually admitted: “I lied.”
Bradley told a meeting of Liverpool city council on December 12th that he had complained both to the editor of the Daily Post and the Press Complaints Commission over coverage of his extraordinary meeting with Mr Forde.

His Lib Dem colleagues gave him a standing ovation after an emotional tirade which conjured up visions of motherhood, apple pie and schoolboy footie teams.
But, we can now exclusively reveal, the fibbing fireman appears to have suffered some short term memory loss during his speech.
This is what he told the city council: “I have made a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission and the editor. If a retraction is not forth-coming, I will take it further.”

In fact, Councillor Bradley has not made a complaint to the PCC.
They have no record at all of any complaint from the fireman.
A spokesman for the PCC added: “The last complaint about the Liverpool Daily Post was in May 2007 – and that was nothing to do with councillors. We have had no complaint from Councillor Warren Bradley.”
Perhaps this was yet another porky that Bradley has told to try and save his neck?
But why does any of this matter? (Just wondering that? eds)
Because Bradley now appears to have accepted that he lied to the Daily Post when they first asked him about his secret rendezvous with Lee Forde (who he had hung out to dry over Mathew Street two days earlier.)
Let us recap.
When contacted by the Daily Post about the cloak and dagger meeting Bradley, as usual, blurted out the first thing that came into his head. He denied ever meeting Mr Forde.
The Daily Post has helpfully explained what happened:
‘Cllr Bradley was asked by our reporter about his meeting with Mr Forde, and replied: "Which meeting?"
Our reporter then told him that he was referring to a meeting at Cllr Bradley’s home on November 18. Cllr Bradley’s unambiguous response was: "I never had a meeting with him."’
Quite properly, the Daily Post reported that Bradley had at first denied the meeting. This was Lie Number 1.

The fireman only admitted the meeting had taken place later, when confronted with the email evidence and Mr Forde’s own sworn testimony.
Hot-headed Bradley, in a desperate attempt to then try and silence the Post, fired off two letters to the Editor threatening him with the Press Complaints Commission.
In a scene fresh out of Monty Python, Bradley found himself issuing a denial that he had issued a denial.
(It really doesn’t get much better than this, does it? You couldn’t make it up! eds)
Bradley’s PCC threat, we now learn, was totally bogus.
He has made no such complaint.
He daren’t - because he would lose and be left swinging in the wind.
And he committed a fourth lie by misleading the council that he had already submitted a complaint. When he hadn’t.
Perhaps someone should complain to the Standards Board?
What all this means is that Bradley now accepts that he lied to the DPost when he denied secretly meeting Mr Forde.
We shall return to Lies No 2 and 3…

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