London Evening Standard/London
London’s transport boss Sir Peter Hendy did not spend any public money on a fling with an escort girl, friends said yesterday. Married Sir Peter, whose taxpayer-funded salary and bonus paid last year totalled £660,000, is alleged to have pursued the affair with call girl Rachael Grundy for nine months as he planned the hugely successful 2012 Olympics transport system.
City Hall was under pressure yesterday after the claims about the relationship.
The Transport for London (TfL) chief is said to have met Grundy at her flat in Victoria and at his nearby flat. If he had used public funds during the affair, he could face calls to repay it.
But friends say that no taxpayer’s cash was used. “No public money was involved,” said a source, “not a penny.”
Grundy, 40, told The Sun how she fell in love with Sir Peter after he allegedly contacted her through her escort website adultwork.com. The £140-an-hour call girl said: “He seemed a lovely, considerate, polite man and he was lots of fun. He contacted me through my escort website. We hit it off immediately.
“It developed into a proper relationship — I fell in love with him. He’d give me money but we never discussed it. It wasn’t about money.”
A source said the strength of the relationship had been exaggerated but as it developed, Sir Peter is understood to have agreed to put his name, and his employment at TfL, on a guarantor form so Grundy could rent a flat as she had to move out of her existing one.
But he is not believed to have signed the form after becoming “uncomfortable” about the situation that he was getting himself into and realising it was not a “sensible” thing to do.
After the relationship ended, Grundy, who is said to no longer work as a call girl, is believed to have threatened to go to the newspapers about it. Another senior TfL official’s name was also on the document as a “work reference” for Sir Peter, who was knighted in March by Princess Anne for the Olympic transport success.
