Ray Lewis dropped from MPs' questions

Mr Lewis is having a serious fall from grace

Monday, 14, Jul 2008 12:01

Ray Lewis, the former deputy mayor for young people, has been dropped from an evidence session of the home affairs committee following allegations about his past.

London mayor Boris Johnson will now attend the session, where he is due to be grilled by MPs on policing and crime in the capital, with his deputy mayor for policing Kit Malthouse.

Mr Lewis ran a highly praised club for disadvantaged urban youths called the Eastside Young Leaders Academy, whose combination of strict discipline and group activities he predicted would one day produce Britain's first black prime minister.

He became immensely popular among the new forward-looking Conservative party, to the point of becoming the first stop for David Cameron following his election as leader.

But the allegations which have taken him from office are lurid and diverse. He is accused of, among other things, failing to repay money to parishioners while serving in the Church of England, falsifying his position as a magistrate and inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Having lost his position as deputy, Mr Lewis will no longer be required to attend the session.

Topics to be discussed at the meeting include London's explosion of knife crime and allegations of racism at the Metropolitan police.

Mr Johnson put cutting down on knife crime at the heart of his campaign to become mayor, but his period in power has seen no halt in the prevalence of attacks, with nine teenagers murdered in the capital since he became mayor.