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Cllr Robert Bailey

Councillor Robert Bailey is deputy leader of the British National Party (BNP) group in Barking & Dagenham.

He was angry about coverage local newspaper the Barking & Dagenham Recorder had given his party in the run up to the London Assembly elections, so he phoned news editor Sally Lowe and shouted at her.

He then called her a "Nazi", a “jobs worth” and swore at her.

Then, he turned up at the Recorder’s headquarters in Ilford with a group of colleagues.

Recorder editor Chris Carter says Bailey “harassed other members of staff”… and shouted through a megaphone before then being moved on by a community police support officer.

Mr Carter told me “I'm shocked that someone who’s been elected to represent the people of Barking & Dagenham could behave in this way…

“In 12 years of being an editor I've never been confronted with such disgraceful behaviour by an elected politician”.

Cllr Bailey has since apologised, saying “I'm not a yob … I'm sorry for some of the things I said”.

When I asked whether he felt it was appropriate for an official running for the London Assembly to have called Ms Lowe a Nazi, he said “yes”.

He told me that in the light of “the genocide against White people in Barking & Dagenham it was perfectly appropriate”.

Mr Derby also accused the Recorder of having an “anti-BNP agenda”, saying “This newspaper is an irrelevance and this is a concocted smear”.

Chris Carter says that whilst he has accepted Cllr Bailey’s apology he may still pursue a complaint through the Standard Board of England.

To listen to my interview with the Recorder editor in full click on the link on the top right hand corner of this page.