'Suicide' police chief is linked to fifth and sixth women

Police chief Michael Todd was yesterday linked to two more women – as an independent police inquiry into his private life was announced.

The Greater Manchester Chief Constable, who was found dead on Mount Snowdon last week, is said to have formed a close friendship with his personal assistant, Anne Neild, and with Met officer Tracy Clarke.

The friendship with Mrs Neild was said to be an open secret among senior officers at the force, which Mr Todd joined in 2002.

A source said: "Anne and Michael were very close."

Mr Todd, who had three children with his loyal wife Carolyn, was tipped as a future Scotland Yard Commissioner.

He is said to have enjoyed a series of extra-marital affairs, including one with high-flying businesswoman Angie Robinson.

The investigation will focus on whether his complicated private life - in which he was reported to be involved with six women - affected his duties as chief constable.

It will be conducted by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) and headed by Sir Paul Scott-Lee, Chief Constable of West Midlands Police.

Scroll down for more...

Dark-haired Mrs Neild, 46, who is separated from her husband, refused to discuss Mr Todd when she answered the door of her stone-built cottage in Stubbins, Lancashire.

A short time later, Mrs Neild, who has one child and who has worked at the force since she was 17, drove 40 miles to Cheadle, Cheshire, where she is staying at the home of a woman police officer.

Her estranged husband, Andrew, who runs a hotel in Truro, Cornwall, said: "I have no idea whether she had a relationship with him (Mr Todd) because what she does in her personal life is just that - personal.

"We have been separated for at least eight years. But we did not separate because of any relationship between Michael Todd and my wife."

Greater Manchester Police spokes-man Smythe Harper said: "We are not saying anything, and neither is Anne."

Last night Tracy Clarke claimed that she had started a friendship with Mr Todd - despite his womanising reputation – when he transferred to London in 1998 to become deputy assistant commissioner.

She said he was an emotionally vulnerable man who threatened suicide to prevent her blowing the whistle on their alleged relationship.

Ms Clarke, who worked in the Force's internal complaints unit, claimed he made the first move, inviting her out for dinner at a tapas restaurant in February 1999, immediately after which both came clean about their marriages.

"It wasn't an extra-marital fling," she said. "It was an intimate relationship. There was a lot of chemistry. He found someone he could open up to."

Ms Clarke said she was alarmed early on in their alleged relationship when he admitted to having suicidal thoughts.

She says she urged him to seek professional help, but added: "He would not entertain it. He said he would see himself as weak."

Ms Clarke, who is in her 30s, said she stopped seeing him in summer 1999, but remained in contact with him.

She said he became extremely worried their affair would become public during an employment tribunal she brought against the Metropolitan Police.

She believed that her promotion was being restricted because of her alleged relationship.

She claimed Mr Todd made an anguished phone call to her one night asking if he was going to be named. She replied she didn't know.

She said he then told her he was in his car with two boxes of 500 paracetamol, "but one of them wasn't full".

Ms Clarke said she agreed not to name him.

But she added of his apparent suicide last week: "I've been expecting it ever since that call.

"He really couldn't see that he could have weathered the storm and the thought of an exposé would have crucified him."

Mr Todd, 50, was found at the bottom of Snowdon. He is said to have sent several text messages an hour before he died and a half-empty bottle of gin was found near his body. An inquest has been opened.

Prominent Manchester businesswoman Mrs Robinson, 50, was the first woman to be linked to Mr Todd since his death.

Scroll down for more...

Mr Todd has also been linked to former police recruit Laura Nagulapalli, an ex-model and air stewardess in her late 30s.

The pair were said to have enjoyed candlelit dinners, although Miss Nagulapalli is reported to have denied that they had an affair.

Mr Todd has also been linked to Julia Wortley, a police superintendent now based in Hertfordshire, whom he met while they were both working in Colindale, North-West London.

He is also said to have become close to Andrea Perry, then a crime reporter on a national newspaper.