Revealed: source of smear on key City figure

An Anonymous email attacking Michael Snyder, the Corporation of London's powerful policy chairman, has been traced to a computer used by one of his council colleagues who is a magistrate and member of the police committee.

The revelation will electrify the City today, after weeks of speculation about who might have sent the email.

In a startling departure from the genteel protocols of the Square Mile, the message accused Mr Snyder, highly respected leader of local government in the City, of trying to diminish the office of the Lord Mayor for his own purposes.

It alleged that Mr Snyder, an accountant, wanted to curtail the roving ambassador role of the Lord Mayor, currently Michael Savory. Snyder, the email claimed, schemed to control the mayoralty by stripping the Lord Mayor and the ancient Court of Aldermen of their authority in a "major power grab".

The sender said Snyder was motivated by the fact that his own mayoral ambitions had been thwarted, because he had a "serious driving conviction".

Police were called in to investigate the email, which was widely circulated to influential figures in the City. Their investigation has proved inconclusive, but the Evening Standard can reveal that the computer used to smear Mr Snyder was traced to Edward Lord,

the ambitious 32-year-old member of the Court of Common Council - the Corporation's main decisionmaking body. Last week, he was defeated in his attempt to be elected to the Court of Aldermen.

City police investigated the email on the basis that it might contravene post and telecommunications or criminal libel law. But they did not complete their inquiries. The Evening Standard has learned why.

After police traced the computer, they contacted Mr Lord. But, according to one source, he refused to let them examine the machine, apparently on legal advice. It was also discovered that the computer was kept at Mr Lord's home in Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park, which he shares with Laura Willoughby, a Liberal Democrat councillor in Islington.

Ms Willoughby, 30, became the council's youngest chief whip when Labour lost Islington in 2000. She has been selected to stand in the constituency against Labour's Jeremy Corbyn at the next election.

No one has suggested - or suspected - she might have used the Blackstock Road computer to send the email. But the Crown Prosecution Service saw no prospect of gaining a conviction in the case, and the police dropped it. The potential offence was not

serious enough to merit searchwarrant or arrest procedures.

Mr Lord told the Standard that he did not send the email, and he said he made two statements to the police. When he was asked whether he had refused to give the police permission to look at the

computer, he said: "I think you have been given a red herring on this one."

Mr Lord has made no secret of the fact that he would one day like to become Lord Mayor. His decision to stand in Cordwainer Ward as alderman recently would have been a necessary first step, but he failed to be elected.

Mr Snyder said he had been concerned over the email because it was not true. "I spend most of my time promoting the City and the Lord Mayor," he said. "I find it objectionable that anyone could suggest otherwise."

In 37 years' driving, he added, he had been fined three times for speeding - the last time in 1977.