Approached for comment on Friday, Bradley told BuzzFeed News: "You'll have to go through [Conservative headquarters], mate, I'm afraid. I'm just getting a bit sick of the whole thing, to be honest."

"I think being held to account now for comments I made nearly a decade ago is a bit ridiculous," he added. "But you'll have to go through CCHQ.

"CCHQ know my response. Look, I'm not interested in digging through all this."

BuzzFeed News asked Conservative HQ for comment, but no response had been provided by the time of publication.

The tweet was posted to the account @benbradley32, which Bradley has since deleted. He now tweets under the handle @bbradleymp.

A source passed a screengrab of the deleted tweet to BuzzFeed News. Searches on the image revealed that it was a Getty Images photograph from a 2004 protest in Dublin. The image URL on the tweet links back to Bradley's deleted account.

The tweet itself was posted on 10 August 2011, a day after Bradley published a post on his blog, Bradders32, urging the police to use force against protesters.



"For once I think police brutality should be encouraged!" Bradley wrote.

The blog was also entirely deleted, but not before it was seen by journalists. Bradley's endorsement of police brutality against rioters was revealed in a front-page story in the Times on Thursday.