Boris Johnson repeatedly dodged questions during a live televised Tory leadership hustings over his late-night row with his partner, Carrie Symonds, which prompted a police call-out.

The former foreign secretary, whose campaign has been rocked by the Guardian’s revelation that police were called to his partner’s flat in the early hours of Friday morning, was asked about the incident at least half a dozen times but declined to address it.

Pressed by the broadcaster Iain Dale, who accused him of “completely avoiding my question” during the hustings in Birmingham, Johnson said: “I don’t think they want to hear about that kind of thing, unless I am wrong. I think what they want to hear is what my plans are for the country and our party.”

Dale, who has himself stood as a Conservative parliamentary candidate, said: “If the police are called to your home, it makes it everyone’s business. You are running for the office of not just leader of the Conservative party but prime minister. Therefore a lot of people who do admire your politics do call into question your character and I do think it is incumbent on you to answer that question.”

The Tory MP conceded people were entitled to ask about his character, but then went on a tangent and failed to address the incident. Asked whether a person’s private life had any bearing on a person’s ability to be prime minister, Johnson said: “Most people would really rather judge my ambitions and my character and my programme by what I deliver in office.”

When Dale tried to again question Johnson, who is still the frontrunner to be the next prime minister, the crowd began jeering but the Tory MP raised his arms telling the audience “don’t boo the great man”.

Asked again whether a person’s private life had any bearing on their ability to be prime minister, as members of the audience shouted “no”, he said: “I’ve tried to give my answer pretty exhaustively. I think what people want to know is whether I have the determination and the courage to deliver on the commitments that I’m making and it will need a lot of grit right now and I think people are entitled to think about this.”

Asked a final time whether he was going to comment on the incident, Johnson – a former journalist – said: “I think that’s pretty obvious from the foregoing, Iain. But I’ve sat where you sat, I understand the responsibilities that you have.”

Dale said: “Well, I wouldn’t have spent the first five minutes on it had you answered the first question.”

Before being questioned, the politician’s campaign video was played and he made a short speech during which he made no mention of the police call-out, instead referencing the Tory party’s poor showing in polls, telling the audience: “The hour is darkest before the dawn.”

The Guardian’s disclosure of the row between Johnson and Symonds increased scrutiny on the politician’s bid to enter No 10 as the country’s next prime minister.

A neighbour said they had heard a woman screaming followed by slamming and banging. On a recording made by the neighbour, heard by the Guardian, Symonds can be heard telling Johnson to “get off me” and “get out of my flat”.

The couple can be heard rowing about spilt red wine, with Symonds telling him: “You just don’t care for anything because you’re spoilt. You have no care for money or anything.”

At one stage, Johnson can be heard telling Symonds to “get off my fucking laptop” before there is a loud crashing noise. The neighbour said that after becoming concerned they knocked on the door but received no response, before eventually calling 999.

In response to the Guardian’s revelations about the row, Tory MP Mark Garnier – who is part of Jeremy Hunt’s campaign team – said Johnson had “fucked up” at the outset of the leadership contest.

Garnier, a former minister for international trade, said before the hustings on Saturday: “On the one hand you think, this is bollocks, people have arguments. My wife and I have ding dongs every now and then like all couples – although the line ‘get off my fucking laptop’ does make you wonder if she was checking his browsing history – I’m just putting that out there.

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“The other side of this is that he has fucked up on the very first evening. My good-natured instinct is that we would not want to capitalise on this, of course not. But you have to say this is the type of attention that Boris attracts. He has the capacity to be front-page news for this kind of thing.

“Obviously I know Boris well, and I would be perfectly happy with him being prime minister, I just think Jeremy would be better. I don’t want to get into an argy-bargy about his character, we want to win this on policy.”

Asked if Johnson’s victory in the leadership no longer seemed a foregone conclusion, Garnier replied: “I believe this may be like a general election, where no one expects the Tories to win then everyone turns out to be a shy Tory. I expect that there are many more ‘shy Hunts’ than you imagine. I’m optimistic.

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“If I do have a direct criticism on Boris he has to come out and do some debates. Hiding away is to his advantage. By the time he appears people will have sent their postal votes in. He thinks he can get away without scrutiny and then when he gets in they might think: ‘My God!’ I think that where the campaign is peculiar is that the postal votes are going out soon. I think we need to see the full Boris and the full Jeremy in glorious technicolor.”