I was stitched up over ‘plebgate’, says Mitchell

The former government chief whip resigned on 19 October, one month after an exchange with police described in a police log leaked to the press on 24 September, which suggests he referred police officers as “f****** plebs”.

In Dispatches, broadcast tonight on Channel 4, Mr Mitchell says he was “stitched up” and might still be in government if footage of the exchanges had been quickly released.

“I think that, had the CCTV been released earlier, together with the email, I think that it would have been discovered quite early on that something was quite seriously wrong with this.

“And I suppose, had that happened, I might still be in government today,” he tells Channel 4 News Political Correspondent Michael Crick.

Watch Michael Crick on Dispatches: Plebs, lies and videotape - Channel 4, 8pm, Monday 4 Feb

‘They wanted me to lie low’

Until he stepped down, Mr Mitchell had followed No.10’s strategy of apologising for swearing, keeping quiet, and hoping that things would die down.

“I think Downing Street wanted this to go away,” he says. “They really wanted me to lie low and let them get on with running the country.

“But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t wake up every morning for the rest of my life knowing that I had been stitched up.”

‘National security’

On the day of his resignation, Mr Mitchell asked to see the CCTV – but says he met with resistance from Sir Jeremy Heywood, the cabinet secretary.

He did not see the footage for another three weeks, and was told he could not take possession of it for reasons of national security – an opinion which Andrew Mitchell disputes. “I do not think that the release of the CCTV affects national security,” he says.

It was only a month later, after Mr Mitchell had established his legal right to have the footage, that the Cabinet Office handed over a DVD.

On 18 December 2012 Channel 4 News broadcast a report containing the CCTV footage and casting doubt on the account of the 19 September exchanges in the police log.