Video evidence released months later by Virgin trains appears to totally prove that Jeremy Corbyn and his team were telling the truth over last summer’s Traingate scandal. The Labour Party leader was filmed by freelance cameraman Yannis Mendez as he sat on the floor of a Virgin Trains East Coast train. Corbyn said the train was “ram-packed” and spoke of his policy to reverse the 1990’s privatisation of Britain’s railways.
After Virgin Trains reacted to the controversy by releasing CCTV images a week later appearing to show Corbyn walking past available seats, much of the press rounded on Jeremy Corbyn, accusing him of staging #Traingate to prove a political point – something his team and other passengers on the train vigorously denied. Now Yannis Mendez and has released the full footage Virgin provided to him months later in order to show that the accusations against Corbyn were unfair. The video released on Double Down News is already going viral.
Watch it below and make your own mind up:
Virgin Trains released CCTV clips on 23 August, 2016, seven days after the Traingate story broke. The next day cameraman Mendez made a formal request for the complete CCTV footage. According to Mendez it took just under seven months for Virgin Trains to comply, though they would not provide all the footage due to “technical difficulties” in the footage.
Jeremy Corbyn did acknowledge at the time to reporters that the train manager on the day offered him free first class seats, but he accepted standard seats vacated 42 minutes later by a family upgraded to First Class by train staff.
The video above is now going viral and columnist Owen Jones demanded Virgin magnate Richard Branson who owns owns Virgin Trains East Coast together with Stagecoach apologise for footage released last year that appeared to suggest Corbyn’s team on the train were lying that there were no standard class seats available.
Apologise immediately, @richardbranson. #traingate has been shown definitively to be a lie – a lie you propagated. pic.twitter.com/sGrEluTcbz
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) August 23, 2017
Virgin Trains were approached for a comment.
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