Ray Mallon secret tapes reveal shameful slurs

Apr 24 2011 by Rachel Wearmouth, Sunday Sun

TODAY the Sunday Sun can reveal in full the shameful contents of secret tape recordings that could leave Ray Mallon’s political career in tatters.

His sex slur on a female colleague, his targeting of Asian taxi drivers, his glee as he claims to pull “a f***ing blinder” as Middlesbrough Council’s “boss” for a friend...the secret recordings uncover what the mayor really says behind closed doors.

Fresh recordings have also emerged where the ‘Robocop’ mayor can be heard to call hackney cab drivers “scumbags” and “f***ing thick”.

The politician insisted “I’m not sexist, I’m not racist” after the tapes were handed exclusively to the Sunday Sun this week by his former pal Mohammed Bashir.

Mr Mallon said he spent 24 hours on the cusp of stepping down, “was mortified” and considered getting an injunction to stop this newspaper from printing the revelations.

After calling a shock press conference on Friday to say sorry for his disgusting remarks, Mr Mallon told the Sunday Sun he made a “professional judgement” to come clean after we approached him for comment on the recordings.

And he tried to explain away his filthy remarks by insisting the context was one of referring to the “honesty and integrity” of council workers and how they were “straight”.

At the press conference, he said: “Describing one officer, I said the officer was so straight that if they had sex it would be in one position.”

In his humiliating public apology to the woman, he claimed he was referring to the situation, not the woman, as stupid.

He said: “I wasn’t calling [the woman] stupid, because she’s not, I was saying this is stupid.”

But we can today reveal EXACTLY what Mr Mallon said.

During the secret recording Mr Mallon says: “I don’t think [she] is malicious, I don’t, I think she is f**king stupid, that’s what I think. I see it all over the council.

He adds: “’s the kind of woman if she f***ing had sex it would be in one position every night.”

Mr Mallon then implores his friend to “f***ing laugh”.

The mayor, who is facing calls to stand down, has said the remarks were taken out of context.

The Sunday Sun is happy to provide the context of the recordings on page six and readers can go online to hear them for yourself.

Mallon later said he hadn’t yet apologised personally to the woman - saying that was a job for her line manager.

After Friday’s surprise press conference - which Mallon said he arranged because he was “media savvy” and wanted to tell people the truth - he apologised for his “tacky remark”.

At the press conference, he apologised for “industrial language” and said the sex slur was an “analogy” using language Mr Bashir would understand.