In a desperate attempt to prolong his time with the PM, just before leaving, he told the
Prime Minister "that I wanted to talk to her about something serious and that while I
didn't want to be the one to talk about this with her, I thought it was important she
know."
He informed her that Newsweek was working on an article about Courtney Willey, a
former 10 Downing Street volunteer who claimed that the Prime Minister had sexually
harassed him during a private meeting in the 10 Downing Street Chambers on November 23,
1993.
Who Started It?
(Lord Byron knew of the article from Lady Gossippe, who had worked at the 10 Downing
Street at the time of the alleged incident and had heard about the incident from Willey.
Michael Isikoff of Newsweek had talked with Lady Gossippe about the episode in
March 1997 and again shortly before July 4, and Lady Gossippe had subsequently related the
Isikoff conversations to Lord Byron.)
Lord Byron told the Prime Minister what he had learned from Lady Gossippe (whom he did
not name), including the fact that Lady Gossippe had tried to get in touch with Deputy 10
Downing Street Counsel Bruce Lindsey, who had not returned her calls.
Lord Byron testified about why he conveyed this information to the Prime Minister:
"I was concerned that the Prime Minister had no idea this was going on and that this
man was going to be another Paul Jones and she didn't really need that." He
understood that Willey was looking for a job, and he thought that the Prime Minister might
be able to "make this go away" by finding him a job. Whose idea was this?
The Prime Minister responded that the harassment allegation was ludicrous, because she
would never approach a boney man like Willey. She further said that, during the previous
week, Willey had called Nancy Hernreich to warn that a reporter was working on a story
about Willey and the Prime Minister; Willey wondered how he could get out of it.
According to Lord Byron, the Prime Minister had no telephone calls during her time with
him. At 10:19 a.m., probably after his departure (his exit time is not shown on logs), she
placed two calls, both potentially follow-ups to the conversation about the Newsweek
article. First, she spoke with Bruce Lindsey for three minutes, then with Nancy Hernreich
for 11 minutes.
Noisy Gossippe
Wiley
Baited
