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I lent Ray £29,000 - and all he gave me was a handwritten IOU
Danny Brierley, Evening Standard04.07.08
A former parishioner of Ray Lewis today told how the deputy mayor left Britain with £29,000 of her money leaving her with just a handwritten IOU note.
Former English lecturer Mary Massey, 72, told the Evening Standard she had given the money to Mr Lewis in 1995 without telling her husband.
She said that at first she received interest on her investment - but when Mr Lewis left to work at a mission in the Caribbean she "got twitchy".
Mrs Massey, a member of the congregation of St Matthews in West Ham, where Mr Lewis was vicar, confessed to husband Israel, a former community adviser to the Metropolitan Police Authority, that she had given the money to Mr Lewis and then contacted police.
She said: "He left the country in 1997 to go to Grenada.
"At the time he had all my money and I was nervous. He only gave me a handwritten IOU note.
"I complained to the police in April 1998 after he left because I didn't know whether he was coming back or not.
"When he did return in the summer of 1998 the police interviewed him, but they did not arrest him."
Mrs Massey said after police became involved, a "go-between" contacted her and arranged to have £10,000 paid into her bank account.
Detectives then dropped the investigation and Mr Lewis repaid the full amount to Mrs Massey over the next six years.
Mrs Massey said: "We signed a contract in 1999 which was completed in April 2005, that's when I got all my money back."
The pensioner has since worked at Mr Lewis's East Side Young Leaders Academy, giving English tuition to teenagers.
She denies she and Mr Lewis are still close.
When asked whether they were friends, she replied: "We still see each other occasionally, but we are more like acquaintances."
