Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has been accused of trying to “weaponise” the loss of her travel pass by linking it to rising crime levels on the Tube.
Ms Hall discovered her Freedom Pass was missing when she got off the London Underground at Pinner station on Monday afternoon last week, and suspected she had been pickpocketed.
But the card – which gives older Londoners free travel – was found in a travel wallet with £40 cash stuck between two seats on the Jubilee line, and returned by a retired businessman to Ms Hall that evening.
Speaking on LBC radio on Tuesday last week, she said she had “no idea” where it could have gone. She said she had “very, very deep pockets” in her winter coat and “assumed” it had been stolen by a fellow passenger.
She said she was “very, very lucky” to have had it returned to her by the Good Samaritan.
Ms Hall, reappearing on LBC during a 30-minute “Call Hall” phone-in on Wednesday morning, was accused by presenter Nick Ferrari of having “weaponised” the incident to enable her to criticise Mayor Sadiq Khan about rising crime levels on the Underground.
She was also asked to apologise to Londoners by a caller, Andy, who suggested she had had a “senior moment” and had simply dropped her travel wallet rather than being targeted, as he believed she had suggested, by a “low-life thief”.
Andy said: “Not just myself, but probably hundreds or thousands of other people, we just think the truth is you are fully aware that you just left it on a seat and a kind gentleman found it and called you to say he had it.
“It just seemed you dressed yourself up as a victim of a crime wave… and clearly lied about your ‘senior moment’.
“At what point did you sit down and ask yourself: ‘How can I use this to try to advance my mayoral chances?’ Will you apologise?”
Ms Hall refused to change her version of events and said: “Given the crime on the Underground has gone up 50 per cent, I truly believed that I had been pickpocketed.”
Asked by Mr Ferrari if she wanted to “revise her story”, she said: “No, because I don’t know what happened to it, genuinely.”
Asked if she was still claiming she had been pickpocketed on the Tube, she said: “I’m claiming I lost my wallet. I had assumed I had been pickpocketed. For all I know, I still was. I genuinely do not know.”
Mr Ferrari asked why a pickpocket would not take the wallet and cash rather than leaving it on a seat.
Asked if the reality was that it fell out of her pocket, she said: “I don’t know is the honest answer.”
Mr Ferrari asked: “If you can’t be trusted with your wallet, Susan Hall, why can you be trusted with London?”
She replied: “Because there has been a 50 per cent increase in crimes on the Underground. I was very lucky. I got my property back. But thousands of people don’t.”
Asked if she “sought to weaponise” the incident, she said: “I wanted to bring attention to the fact that we must be very, very careful [on the Tube]. You are only caught out if you say something wrong.”
Asked if pickpockets were in the habit of stealing wallets and not taking the cash, she said: “I know that pickpockets are on the Underground and it’s gone up by 50 per cent.
“It’s a horrible feeling when you go to get your pass and it’s not there.”
Ms Hall also revealed that she may accept an offer from former mayor and ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson to help her mayoral campaign.
She said: “Boris phoned me up to say if he could help me in any way he would. I may well do at some point. He was a much, much better mayor than Sadiq Khan.”
