Former MP convicted of threatening bar staff
Published: 00:00, 26 March 2009
Former Labour MP and one time parliamentary candidate for Faversham Helen Clark has been convicted of using threatening words and behaviour.
Clark, 54, verbally abused staff in a Peterborough hotel after they refused to serve her more alcohol, magistrates in the Cambridgeshire town were told.
A barmaid used her mobile phone to film Clark swearing, shouting and then sobbing uncontrollably. The footage has appeared on internet site YouTube.
Clark, who represented Peterborough between 1997 and 2005 as one of Tony Blair’s “babes”, denied being drunk and disorderly and using threatening words and behaviour. She was convicted of the threatening behaviour charge after a two-day trial and given a conditional discharge.
The court heard she had been drinking with her husband Alan and a friend from noon to 5pm on Sunday, June 15, 2008.
She said she had drunk about a bottle of wine that afternoon, but denied being drunk or disorderly.
District Judge Nicholas Leigh-Smith told Clark that she had a “preoccupation with self-image”.
He added: “I am satisfied the behaviour on the whole was threatening and abusive. It was certainly disorderly. Mrs Clark was clearly out of control.”
Known then as Helen Brinton, Clark contested the seat of Faversham in 1992 when she lost to Conservative Sir Roger Moate by 16,351 votes.
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KentOnline reporter