The rent boy and trysts in rooms paid for by the Co-op: Escort reveals Flowers sent him emails to organise drug-fuelled sex from his work account
Ciaron Dodd said they met in plush hotel rooms paid for by struggling bank
The £650-a-night escort revealed messages sent by Reverend Flowers
Methodist minister used work account to arrange ’drug-fuelled threesomes’
Mr Dodd says relationship ended when Flowers refused to pay £2,000
Flowers allegedly met him through the escort website ‘Manchester Lads’
By Nazia Parveen, Eleanor Harding and Sam Greenhill
PUBLISHED: 23:15 GMT, 19 November 2013 | UPDATED: 08:20 GMT, 20 November 2013
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Ciaron Dodd said Paul Flowers was debauched and ’showered him with gifts’
Ciaron Dodd said Paul Flowers was debauched and ’showered him with gifts’
The humiliation of Paul Flowers worsened yesterday when a rent boy claimed the ousted Co-op chief hired him for sex.
Ciaron Dodd, 21, said they met in plush hotel rooms paid for by the struggling bank.
The Methodist minister, who was forced to quit his £130,000 role in June, showered him with gifts and took him for nights out to the theatre, said Mr Dodd.
The explosive allegations came as the Labour Party faced further damaging questions about its links with Flowers.
Pictures have emerged of a lavish reception hosted by Ed Miliband and Ed Balls at 10 Downing Street for Flowers and fellow Co-op grandees while Labour was in power.
It also emerged that Labour knew two years ago that Flowers had been forced to resign as one of the party’s city councillors after gay porn was found on his computer.
But it appears the Co-op was not told – allowing him to continue until June as its banking chairman, a position from which he helped to approve massive donations to Labour and Mr Balls.
Dodd, a £650-a-night escort, has backed up his claim by producing damning messages sent by Flowers, 63, from his work email - in which he organises drug-fuelled threesomes.
Dodd said: ‘I knew what he did for a living and couldn’t believe how debauched he was.
‘Every time he saw me he knew he was risking everything – but he just didn’t seem to care.
‘He took me to the theatre and gave me presents like chocolate and wine. I was old enough to be his grandson but he didn’t seem to think we looked like the odd couple.’
In emails from Flowers’ work account – paul.flowers@co-operative.coop – he wrote unguardedly about sex and drugs.
One email to the rent boy states: ‘Been waiting for you to come and have some coke (cocaine) and k (Ketamin) with me. P x.’
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In another exchange, Mr Dodd asks if he can bring his friend Lucas. Flowers replies: ‘I like him a lot – but I can’t afford 2 of you this time! PXx’.
Mr Dodd claimed the relationship ended when Flowers refused to pay £2,000 he owed.
Another 31-year-old escort, who asked not to be named, said the bank boss often talked about his work.
He told the Sun newspaper: ‘He said there was going to be a public announcement about how a deal with Lloyds TSB had fallen through. A few days later I heard it on the news.’
Part-time model Mr Dodd said Flowers contacted him through the escort website ¿Manchester Lads¿ in 2011.
Part-time model Mr Dodd said Flowers contacted him through the escort website ¿Manchester Lads¿ in 2011.
Risking everything: Paul Flowers was forced to quit his £130,000 role in June
Risking everything: Paul Flowers was forced to quit his £130,000 role in June
Part-time model Mr Dodd said Flowers contacted him through the escort website ‘Manchester Lads’ in 2011.
For their first meeting, Flowers took him to see a play, You Can’t Take It With You, at Manchester’s Royal Exchange theatre before taking him to a hotel.
Flowers then paid £650 to hire Mr Dodd for the night and take a cocktail of drugs including amyl nitrate (poppers), cocaine, ketamine and party drug GHB, he claimed.
The pair were soon seeing each other once a week and Flowers would regularly take his new male companion to high-class restaurants and top up his bank account with extra cash, Mr Dodd said.
On top of his standard ‘fee’, he received almost £500 over a 28-day period and he was paid an extra £150 if he brought another rent boy along to the sex sessions.
Mr Dodd said: ‘I would meet Paul at the Renaissance Hotel in Manchester – which was paid for by the bank – while he was in town on business.
‘I would also go to his house where he would hold parties with other escorts and friends. It wasn’t long after our first meeting that Paul tested the water with me in terms of drugs.
‘He asked me if I dabbled and before long drugs were always involved when I met with him.
’Paul enjoyed my company too, though. He’d like to spend hours drinking, talking and taking drugs. He would raise his glass and say, “To good health darling” before we had a drink.’
Mr Dodd, from Manchester, said Flowers would often go to work after less than an hour of sleep.
It has also emerged Reverend Flowers was convicted of gross indecency in a public toilet with a man believed to be a trucker in 1981.
He admitted the offence at Fareham Magistrates’ Court in Hampshire, and was fined £75 with £35 legal costs.
Flowers told justices he was ‘shamed and embarrassed’ about the incident but maintained he was involved ‘at the other man’s instigation’.
Yet he was allowed to continue as a Methodist minister.
Even then, Flowers had friends in high places. He produced a character reference from a Labour peer, Lord Soper of Kingsway, who told the court his friend had suffered a traumatic experience.
Yesterday, Flowers stepped down from Terrence Higgins Trust’s board of trustees.
The Tories last night urged Mr Miliband and Mr Balls to ‘come clean’ about their links with Flowers, who has been suspended from the party.
Both men have been scrambling to distance themselves from the disgraced Methodist minister since the Mail on Sunday captured him on film buying hard drugs, including crack cocaine and crystal meth.
Hospitality: Paul Flowers (centre) at Downing Street for the launch of a Co-op venture in 2010
Hospitality: Paul Flowers (centre) at Downing Street for the launch of a Co-op venture in 2010
Labour support: Ed Miliband at the same function with Co-op chairman Len Wardle (left)
Labour support: Ed Miliband at the same function with Co-op chairman Len Wardle (left)
But damaging details have emerged about the extraordinary position Flowers had held at the heart of Labour. At the Downing Street dinner in February 2010, he can be seen drinking wine and mingling with guests, who included a string of Labour ministers.
Mr Miliband is pictured laughing and joking with Len Wardle, another senior Co-op figure who has quit as the group’s chairman because of ‘serious questions’ over his decision to appoint Flowers to the bank’s board.
Mr Balls, one of 32 Labour MPs who receive financial sponsorship from the Co-op, was also pictured networking at the event, which was held to launch the ‘Friends of the Co-operative ideal’.
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A report of the event, in Co-operative News, reveals that Mr Miliband was ‘in demand’ from senior Co-op figures because he was in charge of Labour’s manifesto for the election that May.
A few months later, Flowers, who describes Mr Balls as a ‘political friend’ was appointed to the Co-op’s ‘political strategy working group’.
Along with Mr Wardle, he approved millions of pounds in donations to the Labour and Co-operative parties, including a £50,000 donation to Mr Balls.
Despite the economic crisis – and the Co-op’s dire finances – the group has increased its political donations from £664,000 in 2008 to £880,000 last year.
Flowers boasted to MPs earlier this month that he had helped oversee an increase in the maximum annual donations to £1.15million before stepping down.
Following the Number 10 dinner, Mr Miliband appointed Flowers to his exclusive business advisory board.
The Labour leader went on to hold dinners with Flowers and other business figures at Westminster restaurants in July and November of 2011.
This March, he invited Flowers for private talks at his Commons office. The following month the Co-op Bank threw Labour a financial lifeline with a £1.2million loan.
In a letter to the Labour leader, Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps demanded answers to nine critical questions, including what the Labour leadership knew about Flowers’ resignation from Bradford council and what personal dealings Mr Miliband had with him while the Co-op was doling out cash to Labour.
Mr Shapps wrote: ‘The latest revelations about the conduct and behaviour of Paul Flowers have shocked and appalled the public.
’They have also raised serious questions about the Labour Party to which you have not yet adequately responded.’
Tory MP Brooks Newmark, a member of the Commons Treasury committee, which is investigating the near-collapse of the Co-op during Flowers’ time as chairman, said there were also questions about whether Labour had been involved in his extraordinary rise.
Mr Newmark said: ‘Labour need to come clean about exactly what place Paul Flowers held in the Labour hierarchy.
’We know that the Reverend Flowers’ judgment was deeply flawed, no doubt not helped by whatever drugs he was taking.
‘But the question does arise whether, in spraying shareholders’ money around to the Labour Party, including an extraordinary gift of £50,000 to Ed Balls, was he engaged in some sort of payback for being given this £132,000 bank job for which he was manifestly ill-suited?
’We know there is a special relationship between Labour and the Co-op – did the Reverend Flowers receive support from Labour in getting the job?’
Flowers was a senior Labour councillor before rising to prominence in the Co-op movement.
The inappropriate material that cost him his council seat was found when he gave his laptop to the Bradford authority’s IT department for a routine servicing.
Shocked council officials confronted him with the images, and he resigned immediately. But in public, he pretended he was leaving for family reasons and because of his high-pressure role at the Co-op Bank.
Pugh
Yesterday, a spokesman for Bradford Council said: ‘Inappropriate but not illegal adult content was found on a council computer handed in by Councillor Flowers for servicing. This was put to him and he resigned immediately.’
Bradford Council confirmed last night that it did not inform the Co-op of the reason for Mr Flowers’s resignation because, although he had breached the council’s rules, he had not broken the law.
At the time, the then leader of the council, Councillor Ian Greenwood, paid tribute to his work and called him ‘a highly gifted individual who has made an enormous contribution as a member of the executive’.
Mr Miliband and Mr Balls both deny having close links with Flowers.
Labour refused to comment in detail on the fresh allegations yesterday.
A spokesman said: ‘Ed Miliband and the Labour leadership have been as shocked as anyone at the recent revelations regarding Paul Flowers. That is why we have taken immediate action and suspended him from the Labour Party.’
Mr Balls was under further pressure last night to hand back a £50,000 donation from the Co-op. Mr Newmark said: ‘Mr Balls should ask himself whether it is right to accept that money and consider giving it back.’
A spokesman for Mr Balls insisted there was no reason to return the money as it had been properly donated by the Co-op Group.
Former Co-op bank chief caught on camera in ’crystal meth deal’
Co-op Group boss quits in growing row over ex-banking chief caught buying drugs
The Co-op was plunged into fresh chaos yesterday as its chairman fell on his sword for appointing crack addict Reverend Paul Flowers to head the group’s bank.
Len Wardle’s resignation came as anger is growing among ordinary investors whose retirement incomes are being raided to prop up the disaster-prone bank.
He admitted ‘serious questions’ were raised by the drugs scandal over former banking chairman Paul Flowers.
Mr Flowers, a former Labour councillor and Methodist minister who was chairman of the Co-operative Bank when it ran into trouble, faces an investigation by the police after being covertly filmed counting off £20 notes to buy hard drugs.
He was covertly filmed buying crystal meth and crack cocaine.
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Resigned: Co-operative Group chairman Len Wardle has quit his job with immediate effect
Ursula Lidbetter replaces Mr Wardle in running the troubled Co-op Group
Resigned: Co-operative Group chairman Len Wardle, left, has quit his job with immediate effect. Ursula Lidbetter, right, replaces Mr Wardle in running the troubled Co-op Group
The Co-operative Group yesterday launched a fact-finding investigation into ’any inappropriate behaviour’ at the group or the Co-operative Bank and a ’root-and-branch review’ of the structure of the organisation.
There is growing incredulity that a man with no banking experience and a penchant for crystal meth and cocaine had been made chairman of a bank.
But today Mr Wardle announced he will quit the £145,000 position he has held since 2007.
He was due to leave next May but he said it was now right for him to go straight away, having led the board that appointed Mr Flowers.
Mr Wardle said: ‘The recent revelations about the behaviour of Paul Flowers, the former chair of the Co-operative Bank, have raised a number of serious questions for both the bank and the group.
‘The recent revelations about the behaviour of Paul Flowers, the former chair of the Co-operative Bank, have raised a number of serious questions for both the bank and the group. I led the board that appointed Paul Flowers to lead the bank board, and under those circumstances I feel that it is right that I step down now, ahead of my planned retirement in May next year’
– Len Wardle
‘I led the board that appointed Paul Flowers to lead the bank board and under those circumstances I feel that it is right that I step down now, ahead of my planned retirement in May next year.
‘I have already made it clear that I believe the time is right for real change in our operations and our governance and the board recently started a detailed review of our democracy.
‘I hope that the group now takes the chance to put in place a new democratic structure so we can modernise in the interests of all our members.’
Critics have questioned how he could have been appointed given his apparent lack of experience, and Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, said that, even before the weekend’s revelations, it was clear he was ‘manifestly unsuitable’.
The Co-operative Bank is facing a rescue plan which will see majority control turned over to investors including US hedge funds, after it was left with a £1.5 billion gap in its finances following the takeover of the Britannia Building Society in 2009.
Mr Wardle’s departure will see him replaced by his deputy, Ursula Lidbetter, chief executive of the Lincolnshire Co-operative.
The Co-operative Group said: ‘It is intended that Ursula will chair the group through the current governance review, which will include consideration of how the board is constituted and chaired.’
ED BALLS UNDER PRESSURE OVER £50,000 DONATION FROM CO-OP
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls is under pressure over a £50,000 donation from the Co-op
Ed Balls has come under pressure to return a £50,000 donation backed by the former Co-operative Bank chairman hit by claims of hard drug use.
Labour’s leadership has attempted to distance itself from Paul Flowers, a former councillor, after it emerged he attended a private meeting with Ed Miliband and both men were also present at two dinners in Westminster.
Sources insisted he was ’neither influential nor important’.
Yesterday the 63-year-old was suspended from the party for bringing it into disrepute following footage that appears to show him buying drugs days after being grilled by the Treasury Select Committee over the bank’s disastrous performance.
A Labour source: ’It’s true that there was a private meeting with Ed in March of this year. There were two informal dinners - three meetings that we can find records of in the space of three years.
Earlier this month Mr Flowers told the Commons Treasury committee said: ’My recollection is that we paid for a particular researcher to assist the shadow chancellor in the work that he needed to do, and that we believed to be a legitimate and proper use of resources.’
Tory MP Brooks Newmark told the Daily Telegraph: ’The Rev Flowers’ judgment was clearly impaired if he was prepared to give Ed Balls £50,000.
’Mr Balls should now ask himself whether it is right to accept that money, and consider giving it back.’
MPs have castigated financial watchdogs for rubber-stamping the appointment of Rev Paul Flowers, which they denounced as a farcical ‘box-ticking exercise’.
Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Commons Treasury Select Committee, said it was obvious when Flowers appeared before them earlier this month that he was ‘manifestly unsuitable’ to be a bank chairman.
He called for the regulation of senior bankers to be tightened to include continuing and ‘intrusive’ supervision.
‘It’s been a complete disaster. Nothing less than saying that will do,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s World At One.
He attacked the ‘approved persons regime’, whereby a City panel supposedly checked the competence of Rev Flowers, as ‘nothing more than a massive bureaucratic, back-covering, box-ticking exercise that satisfied regulators but did little or nothing to protect shareholders or customers of banks’.
In fact Flowers was only checked by the regulator when he became a member of the Co-op board and was not re-interviewed at all when he was promoted to chairman in April 2010.
Flowers quit his post in June this year as his ‘ethical’ bank was driven to the brink of collapse, threatening the retirement incomes of thousands of pensioners.
Yesterday he was also suspended by the Labour Party amid embarrassment over a £50,000 donation to Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls.
He faces a police inquiry into his use of hard drugs, and the Co-op announced a ‘root and branch review’ into ‘any inappropriate behaviour’ during the tenure of its former boss.
Mr Wardle will be replaced by his deputy, Ursula Lidbetter, chief executive of the Lincolnshire Co-operative.
She told BBC Radio 4’s The World At One: ’The stories (about Mr Flowers) are shocking but it’s not something that I can comment on today. There are investigations going on, it is in the hands of police.
’Len had already told the membership that he was going to stand down next May and in light of the review of governance, which Len started, he felt that making a fresh start with a new chairman would be the best way forward.
’We have to devise a governance for the Co-operative Group which is fit for the future, for the scale and complexity of the organisation. It’s an amalgamation of many, many organisations over its 150-year history, and we realise that it needs to change, it needs to be simpler, and that will mean changing many things.
The one thing we do want to make sure is that members still have a voice at the heart of the Co-operative Group. There are seven million members and we think their voice should be heard loud and clear, but we are open-minded about how we achieve that.
’The review will look at absolutely everything - it will look at what went wrong, it will look at the opportunities and we will devise a governance structure that is fit for the future, involves our members and makes sure we are very efficient and highly effective in the future.’
