Conservative Mayor of St.Anne’s, Councillor Shirley Green, has been named by a Daily Mail reporter, Nick Craven, as the person who paid £6,500 from her own savings to bail out Fylde’s scandal-hit MP Mark Menzies. This payment followed a frantic 3.15 a.m. phone call from Menzies begging for money to urgently pay ‘bad people’ who were ‘threatening his life’.
A source close to MP Menzies had previously told The Times about the incident, saying that Menzies had met a man on an online dating website and gone to the man’s flat, before subsequently going with another man to a second address where he continued drinking.
Today (Thursday 18th April) the Mail reports that the St. Anne’s Mayor, Shirley Green, apparently found herself awoken early the following morning by a 78-year-old Tory party colleague who was concerned following her early hours call from MP Menzies.
The=is so-far unnamed pensioner was calling Mayor Green because she herself had earlier been rung by MP Menzies allegedly in great distress about what might happen to him if he didn’t come up with the money immediately.
The allegation initially reported in the Times was that MP Menzies claimed in the phone call that he was locked in a flat and needed £5,000 as a matter of ‘life and death’. A few hours later the sum demanded, which by then had risen to £6,500, was paid by Tory Mayor Shirley Green from her ISA savings and subsequently reimbursed from Tory donor funds in an account named Fylde Westminster Group, it is alleged.
This scandal is now being investigated by Conservative Party bosses, along with some £14,000 given by donors for Tory campaign activities, which was previously transferred to Mr Menzies’s personal bank account and used for his private medical expenses, according to The Times.
Tory party chiefs are said to have been aware of the allegations of potential fraud for more than three months. Their inaction is now being questioned by political commentators.
The featured photograph shows Shirley Green (left) with Mark Menzies together with Councillor Karen Harrison at St Anne’s Charity Carnival in July last year. Cllr Green (photograph below) has lived in St. Anne’s on the Sea since 1987 and has served on St. Anne’s on the Sea Town Council since 2019.
For Lytham St. Anne’s original article go to: https://www.lythamstannes.news/news/breaking-news-the-times-alleges-mp-menzies-demanded-campaign-cash-to-pay-bad-people/
