Pubdate: Sun, 16 Oct 2005
Source: Mirror, The (UK)
Copyright: 2005 The Mirror
Contact:  http://www.mirror.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1161
Author: Susie Boniface

VICE GIRL: I SNORTED COCAINE WITH TOP TORY BOY

Exclusive: Tories' Silence On Drugs Sparks Shock New Claims MP George
Osborne Denies It But Still Refuses To Say Whether He's Ever Taken
Class A Drugs

A WOMAN last night sensationally stepped into the Tory drugs row to
claim: "I took cocaine with George Osborne."

Former vice-madam Jennifer Shackleton is the first person to break
cover in the furore which has engulfed the Tory leadership campaign.

Shadow Chancellor Mr Osborne and his pal, leadership candidate David
Cameron, have repeatedly refused to answer the question: "Have you
taken Class A drugs?"

Now Shackleton - a one-time dominatrix known to Mr Osborne as Nathalie
- - has added her voice to the debate.

She claims to have snorted cocaine with Mr Osborne - just 22 at the
time - and an Old Etonian pal of his called William during a series of
parties 12 years ago.

A photograph taken at the time shows Shackleton, who had convictions
for supplying drugs and brothel-keeping, hugging Mr Osborne at her
then flat in Kensington, West London.

On the table in front of them are two empty bottles of wine and what
Shackleton claims are the remnants - rolled papers - from an evening
of cocaine-snorting.

Now a mother of one, she said: "Osborne and Cameron have been trying
to brush their pasts under the carpet, saying whatever they did in the
past is not relevant. But I think it's important they tell the truth."

Last night Mr Osborne, in a statement to the Sunday Mirror, denied the
specific allegation of taking cocaine with Shackleton. However, he
again refused to answer the question, "Have you ever taken Class A
drugs?" Despite repeatedly being asked to give a straight answer, Mr
Osborne said: "I refer you to my previous answers." Instead he
confirmed that he had met Shackleton in 1993 through his friend
William, who he later helped through an addiction to cocaine and crack.

Mr Osborne was remarkably frank about his friend's addiction and, in
his statement (above right), said that tackling the evil of drugs
should be a top priority for any government.

Mr Osborne, 34, is Tory Shadow Chancellor and David Cameron's campaign
manager in the bid to take over as party leader. The refusal of the
two young MPs - who were both members of a louche drinking society
called The Bullingdon Club when at Oxford University - to answer the
drugs question over the last two weeks has electrified the contest.

Shackleton, 42, first met Mr Osborne around 12 years ago when Old
Etonian William - whose full name we are not revealing to protect his
identity - was her boyfriend. Mr Osborne was then working as a
freelance journalist before joining the Conservative Research
Department in 1994.

When they met, Shackleton was already a convicted drug dealer and
brothel keeper. She threw regular parties for friends and clients at
her two-storey flat, a stone's throw from Kensington Palace in West
London.

She claimed: "George and his friends wanted drugs. They also wanted to
know about my parties and once they found out what I did for a living
they were always asking me about domination."

Shackleton would dress up in rubber basques and PVC suits. She would
whip and play painful sex games with her clients, charging them a
minimum of ?350. She said: "George would ask me how much it was and
what I did. He seemed quite interested. I told him I would test their
pain threshold.

"You can't automatically start whipping someone. It's not a standard
get-on-your-knees- and-lick-my-boots thing. Some people want uniforms,
some want other things, so you find out what their kink is and then
give them what they want."

She added: "George would ask me if I would stop when someone asked me
to and I said, 'Of course'. We went into a lot of detail - he was very
curious. My clients included actors, models and City businessmen. A
lot of them were public schoolboys." Shackleton also claims she was
asked to supply cocaine and girls for sordid parties run by members of
the Bullingdon Club. Mr Osborne did not attend any sex parties.

She said: "One which I was asked to help provide girls for was held on
a famous country estate. They wanted strippers, who could do 'extras'.
I provided about six grammes of cocaine and two girls I knew went along."

Shackleton fell pregnant by William in early 1994 and although she
stopped working and taking cocaine herself, she claims she continued
to occasionally provide drugs to Mr Osborne and his friends. She said:
"George and his friends would still come round, and when he found out
I was pregnant he gave me a big bunch of flowers. William took some
pictures of me and George with the flowers, just after they'd taken
some cocaine. They used to snort it through rolled up bits of white
paper, because bank notes were unhygienic. When the picture was taken
I tried to shove the papers out of the way behind the vase, but you
can still see them."

Shackleton, who now lives in a rented flat in Kensington, said that
although she was friends with Mr Osborne, she disliked his pals.

She said: "They were arrogant public schoolboys and they would talk
down to me. I never understood why George was with them. He was
nothing like that. He was quite kind.

"He would do lines (of cocaine) but didn't go crazy like the rest of
them did. George was the straight one of the bunch - I can't say a bad
word about him. I thought of George as a friend. I quite fancied him.
He was quiet and not as arrogant as them, and seemed to like me as a
person. The others, once they found out what I did for a living,
treated me like dirt."

The increasingly bitter Tory leadership campaign is now dominated by
questions over whether Mr Cameron and his campaign manager have ever
used Class A drugs. Quizzed on Channel 4's Morgan & Platell programme
last weekend, Mr Osborne said: "I'm not going to answer that
question... for simple political reasons... and I think it's much
better for our party if we don't directly answer that question as
individuals."

He added: "I don't think people are particularly interested in, you
know, what politicians have or haven't done at university or, you
know, when they were kids or whatever."

Meanwhile Mr Cameron, 39, has confirmed a member of his family has
been in rehab for heroin addiction but insisted he was allowed "a
private life before politics" and added: "I did a lot of things before
I came into politics that I shouldn't have done. We all did."

But his Tory rival David Davis has stoked the debate by saying anyone
who took drugs recently is not fit to lead the party or the country.

Last night a Conservative spokesman added: "These allegations are
completely untrue. George Osborne has never taken drugs with this woman."

HIS STATEMENT LAST NIGHT..

TWELVE years ago a friend of mine went out with a woman called
Nathalie, and they had a child together. I met them together
occasionally in the autumn of 1993, and it soon became clear that my
friend had started to use drugs. He became more and more addicted, and
I saw his life fall apart.

With his other friends, I tried to persuade him to seek treatment.
Eventually he did, and after a long time in rehabilitation he has now
recovered and put his life back together. I am very proud of the
battle he has fought and won.

That is and always has been the sum total of my connection with this
woman. It was a stark lesson to me at a young age of the destruction
which drugs bring to so many people's lives.

Ever since then I have believed that tough, realistic policies to
tackle the evil of drugs should be one of the top priorities of any
government.

I now want to respect the privacy of my friend, who is now happily
recovered and working full-time abroad, and the privacy of his young
child. For the sake of that child I think we should leave them alone. 
- ---
MAP posted-by: SHeath(DPFFlorida)