Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday says that, after speaking to Star reporter Robyn Doolittle, he believes there is a video that appears to show Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.

However, Holyday told reporters at city hall on Tuesday that he is not yet convinced the video actually shows Ford taking drugs.

Holyday said he was convinced by Doolittle during a “general conversation,” in the Star’s city hall bureau last week. “She took the time to assure me that she had seen the video and that she believed it . . .

“I believe that there’s a tape all right because she told me there was a tape and I believe what she said. It’s whether the tape is authentic or not.

“I haven’t seen the tape and I think the only way to know to really know if the tape is authentic, and to satisfy everyone, is for it to be found and analyzed and then we would know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

Ford has adamantly declared that there is no cellphone video even though Doolittle and colleague Kevin Donovan both say they were shown it in a car in Etobicoke on May 3. John Cook, editor in chief of U.S. website Gawker, says he was also shown the video and described it in similar terms.

On his Sunday afternoon radio show, Ford told a caller: “Number one, there’s no video, so that’s all I can say. You can’t comment on something that doesn’t exist.”

Asked if it is a problem that Toronto’s mayor says there is no video and his deputy mayor says there is a video, although it may not be what it appears, Holyday said: “I don’t think so because I don’t think the mayor has talked to anybody at the Star, I’m sure he hasn’t.

“From his standpoint he claims that he was not in the video, that he knows nothing of the video and that he believes that the video does not exist. Well, that’s his opinion based on his opinion on what he’s been told and what he believes.

“I, on the other hand, have talked to Robyn Doolittle and I believe Robyn Doolittle saw a video, that’s all I’m saying. Whether it’s authentic or not, is another question . . . Nobody will know until we find the video.”

Holyday said he believes that the Star should have bought the cellphone video from the drug dealers who were offering it.

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However, he understands Doolittle’s response that she did not have the authority to do that.

Media organizations often pay $500 for a good picture shot by a freelancer. The video owners were asking for “six figures”, an intermediary said.

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