Stuart Collier tells the Guardian the Tory frontrunner is not fit to be prime minister

A journalist who Boris Johnson secretly discussed helping a friend to have beaten up has demanded an apology from the Conservative leadership candidate as he stands on the brink of Downing Street.

Stuart Collier, the journalist who was at the centre of the incident nearly 30 years ago, said Johnson was not fit to be prime minister.

In 1990, Johnson was secretly recorded agreeing to provide the address of the News of the World reporter Stuart Collier to his friend Darius Guppy, who wanted to arrange for the journalist to have his ribs cracked as revenge for investigating his activities.

In the event the assault did not occur, while Guppy ended up being jailed for a separate £1.8m fraud and Johnson later dismissed the call as a joke. But after being tracked down by the Guardian, the retired reporter said he had been so disturbed by the “Guppygate” incident he had told his wife to be careful answering the front door.

While Collier learned of the call long after the fact, he was sufficiently unsettled by the discovery to worry for his family’s safety, he said. The 69-year-old called on Johnson to apologise to him and his wife over the incident, which he said had left her frightened at home with their then young son, Ross. He said he thought it was “disgraceful” Johnson could become prime minister and he should “definitely apologise”.

Quick guide About this series Show Hide The real Boris Johnson Over the course of the week, the Guardian is publishing a series of news reports, features and multimedia components on the man widely expected to be the next Conservative leader – and therefore prime minister. In coverage that ranges from his early days as a journalist to his last senior job as foreign secretary, we will seek to shed light on the exploits, ambitions and values of one of the most consequential – and most divisive – politicians of the age.



Asked about the politician’s claim the conversation was a joke, he replied: “I didn’t treat it as a joke. That’s why I warned my wife to be careful about who she answered the door to. I took it seriously at the time and it concerned me. I was worried, certainly worried enough to put my wife on a warning.”

During the call, Johnson told Guppy he had tried four contacts to obtain the reporter’s details but was fearful his role in the plot would be uncovered. Guppy told him: “I am telling you something, Boris, this guy has got my blood up, all right, and there is nothing which I won’t do to get my revenge. It’s as simple as that.”

Johnson is closing in on 10 Downing Street, having weathered a sometimes bruising Tory leadership campaign with what most analysts believe remains a strong majority among the party electorate.

The 1990 phone call took place when Johnson was working as a Daily Telegraph correspondent in Brussels.

Colleagues and antagonists from his years there told the Guardian that his approach was notorious among the city’s political class. A bureaucrat who found himself on the wrong side of one of Johnson’s stories said: “He was the paramount of exaggeration and distortion and lies. He was a clown – a successful clown.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Boris Johnson at a house party in Brussels in about 1990, when he was a Daily Telegraph correspondent. Photograph: Charles Grant

Collier’s wife, Jennifer, 64, a lifelong Conservative voter, also urged Johnson to say sorry. “He should be accountable for the things that he’s done. I think it’s disgraceful behaviour,” she said.

“These people seem to think they don’t have to live by the same moral standards as the rest of us. They think because they went to Eton they don’t have to be answerable to things, and I just think his moral compass is way off the scale.”

Jennifer Collier, a former nurse who works for a charity, said the couple had only recently moved into their home at the time and had not known many people.

“So it was quite worrying to be told: ‘Don’t answer the door unless you recognise somebody,’ because I didn’t recognise anybody. Stuart was away at work all day, used to leave half seven in the morning, get back at eight o’clock at night. So I was in this house on my own with a toddler,” she said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Collier with his wife, Jennifer, and their then baby son, Ross. Photograph: Tom Pilston/The Guardian

Guppy attended Oxford University with Johnson, where the pair were members of the Bullingdon Club. Guppy was jailed in 1993 after staging a fake jewel robbery in New York three years earlier and fraudulently claiming £1.8m from insurers.

Collier said: “I must have doubted his innocence, and for that reason he must have been questioned by the cops over there [in New York], and that’s what got his back up. I was delving into his past and he was getting a bit nervous.”

The recording was made by Guppy’s one-time accomplice in the jewellery fraud, Peter Risdon, who later turned against him, began tapping his calls and gave evidence for the prosecution at the trial.

Timeline Transcript of phone call between Boris Johnson and Darius Guppy Show Hide Guppy: “Have you got this number [for Stuart Collier]?” Johnson: “Darius, look, there is a guy at this moment going through …” Guppy: “You’re brilliant.” Johnson “… his files at home.” Guppy: “Fantastic.” [conversation continues] Guppy: “But I am telling you something, Boris, this guy [Collier] is getting my blood up, all right? And there is nothing which I won’t do to get my revenge. It is as simple as that.” [conversation continues] Johnson: “How badly are you going to hurt this guy?” Guppy: “Not badly at all.” Johnson: “Really, I want to know, because if this guy is seriously hurt I will be fucking furious.” Guppy: “I guarantee you that he will not be seriously hurt.” Johnson: “How badly hurt will he be?” Guppy: “He will not have any broken limbs or a broken arm and he will not be put into intensive care or anything like that. He will probably get a couple of black eyes and a cracked rib.” Johnson: “A cracked rib.” Guppy: “Nothing which you didn’t suffer in rugby, OK? But he’ll get scared and that’s what I want him to do. I want him to get scared. I want him to have no idea who’s behind it, OK? And I want him to realise that he’s fucked someone off and whoever he’s fucked off is not the sort of person he wants to mess around with. “Because I guarantee you Boris, I guarantee you these people are, you know, if someone hurts their boss or threatens their boss, I promise you it’s just total sort of, it’s like they’re like dogs, they are like alsatians or rottweilers, they love their masters, they are affectionate towards them, they are evil bastards to everyone else.” Johnson: “Yeah, good. OK, Darry now, yeah, I mean …” Guppy: “You must have faith in me, Boris.” [conversation continues] Johnson: “OK Darry, I’ve said I’ll do it. I’ll do it, don’t worry.” Guppy: “Boris, I really mean it, I love you and I will owe you this.”

A copy of the call was eventually sent to the then Telegraph editor, Max Hastings, who allowed Johnson to keep his job after summoning him for talks.

Hastings wrote last year of the incident: “Boris said that he had done nothing to meet Guppy’s request. Maybe, I said, but why had he not dismissed it out of hand? ‘Loyalty,’ he said. ‘Loyalty to an old friend.’ We sent him back to Brussels with a wigging.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Collier, a former News of the World reporter, and his wife at their home in Oxfordshire. Photograph: Tom Pilston/The Guardian

Part of the 21-minute taped call was leaked to the Evening Standard in 1993 without naming Johnson as the co-conspirator, before a fuller transcript was published in the Mail on Sunday in 1995. In 2009, Channel 4’s Dispatches broadcast audio of the recording.

Discussing his anger at Collier during the taped call, Guppy declares himself to be a “potential psychopath” and gives “his word of honour” that Johnson’s role in the plot will remain a secret.

After expressing some reservations over the possible severity of the proposed beating, Johnson is heard saying at the end of the call: “OK, Darry, I said I’ll do it. I’ll do it, don’t worry.”

In Johnson’s 2001 book about running to be an MP, he referred to the incident as “a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing”.

Questioned about the tape by Eddie Mair in 2013, Johnson said: “Yes, it was certainly true that he was in a bit of a state, and I did humour him in a long phone conversation, from which absolutely nothing eventuated and … you know, there you go. But I think if any of us had our phone conversations bugged, they might, you know … people say all sorts of fantastical things while they’re talking to their friends.”

Guppy – who moved to South Africa after being released from prison in the 1990s – later penned a piece in defence of his old friend, in which he said of his plot: “My only regret is that I was never able to finish the job.”

Johnson is the overwhelming favourite to be the next prime minister, but Jennifer Collier said: “I’m absolutely astounded that he’s got that lead. I’ve been a Tory voter since I was able to vote and I’ll never vote for him.”

Johnson’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Tomorrow: Johnson the MP and writer