EX MP Helen Clarke - Due for trial

Former Labour MP Helen Clark is to stand trial on charges of drunken and abusive behaviour, according to the 
Peterborough Evening Telegraph.

A FORMER city MP is to stand trial before a judge over allegations of drunken and abusive behaviour in the bar of a Peterborough hotel.

Ex-Labour politician Helen Clark has been accused of a public order offence and being drunk and disorderly, following an alleged altercation with staff at the Great Northern Hotel earlier this year.

Oh dear I think I have come down with a case of Schadenfreude: takingjoy in the suffering of others

The 53-year-old was due to appear at Peterborough Magistrates’ Court yesterday to answer the charges but did not attend the hearing.

Instead, her solicitor pleaded not guilty to the allegations on her behalf, and the ex-MP will go on trial in December.

Watch the excuses of she has been under a lot of stress, family problems, suffering drink problems/breakdown etc etc etc.

Magistrates heard that video evidence was likely to be shown at the trial, and almost a dozen witnesses are expected to be called to give their accounts of the alleged incident.

The court was told that Mrs Clark, of Huntly Grove, Peterborough, got drunk and abused workers at the hotel, which is opposite the city’s railway station, on Sunday, June 15.

Tsk, these feral ex Labour MP binge drinkers. One would think that Labour MP's would be rather tough on that and tough on the causes of etc...

Anthea Harris, prosecuting, said: “The defendant was in a hotel. She was drunk and she was swearing and abusive to members of staff.”

Mrs Clark faces two charges in connection with the alleged incident – using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour and being drunk and disorderly in a public place – both of which she denies.

Drunk, she was off her face.

She was due to appear before the court two weeks ago, but the hearing was adjourned until yesterday after she said she was not well enough to attend.

At the latest hearing her solicitor, Simon Milburn, said: “I have got full instructions from my client, and I’m instructed to enter not guilty pleas on her behalf.

“I would ask that the matter be listed for trial.”

Not well enough to attend, think she is going for a poor health, I was on medication and the booze reacted with it defence.

He added that she accepted she was at the hotel at the time of the alleged altercation, but said she was neither drunk nor abusive at the time.

Mrs Clark represented the city in Parliament for eight years after winning the seat in Labour’s landslide election victory of 1997.

She was re-elected four years later, but lost out to the Conservative Party’s current Peterborough MP, Stewart Jackson, in 2005.

Her trial is due to take place at the court on Wednesday, December 3, although the case will be heard by a district judge rather than magistrates.

The prosecution is likely to call five witnesses, including hotel workers and a police officer, while the defence will hear evidence from Mrs Clark, her husband and others.

There was a clip of this ex-MP somewhat "tired and emotional" -an old term for pissed and abusive - posted on the internet and viewed by many thanks to the technology of mobile recording.
Sadly the video is no longer available and I also found this as to why

FORMER Peterborough MP Helen Clark has threatened to take legal action after 
a film of her involved in an altercation in a Peterborough hotel was posted 
on a video hosting website

I posted previous on her drunken state here:
http://newportcity.blogspot.com/2008/07/ex-mp-helen-clark-is-as-mad-as.html
And also here:http://newportcity.blogspot.com/2008/07/labour-mp-uses-c-word.html

And so as a tribute to her attempting to censor You Tube and for all who would get some joy from watching a pissed up ex-MP abuse some staff and make herself look a complete fool, lo and behold I found it on Google videos:

http://podblanc.com/helen-clark-ex-labour-now-tories-mp-goes-crazy

Helen Clark gets off with a slap across the wrist...

A former Labour MP has been given a conditional discharge after being found guilty of using threatening words and behaviour to hotel bar staff.

Helen Clark, who represented Peterborough between 1997 and 2005, was convicted after a two-day trial at Peterborough Magistrates' Court.

Clark, who had denied any offence, was found not guilty of being drunk and disorderly.

Prosecutors alleged that Clark, a 54-year-old former English teacher, lost her temper after bar staff refused to serve her more alcohol in the Great Northern Hotel in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, during the afternoon of Sunday June 15, 2008.

The court heard that Clark, her husband Alan and a friend had been drinking from around midday to around 5pm while discussing politics.

Clark told the court that she had downed "in the order of" a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. But she denied being drunk and denied calling a barmaid "Portuguese b*tch".

Part of the episode was filmed on a barmaid's mobile phone - and footage was shown in court. In the film, Clark was seen holding her head in her hands and screaming and shouting. The court was told the mobile phone footage later appeared on the internet site YouTube.

District Judge Nicholas Leigh-Smith said prosecutors had not proved Clark was drunk and disorderly but had proved she was guilty of using threatening words and behaviour.
Judge Leigh-Smith said Clark had had a "preoccupation with self and 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."

.