behaviour in future". Neither Nick Clegg nor Tim Farron had read the Webster report (Webster stated 'I do not consider it appropriate to publish the evidence') and Lord Rennard was initially also denied sight of it, in spite of earlier promises that he would see it. Farron asked Lord Rennard to apologise to the women involved. It was reported in The Daily Telegraph that Clegg had stated that "it is right that Chris Rennard has been asked in this report to apologise, to reflect on his behaviour." Clegg went on to state that Rennard would not be "playing any role in my general election plans for the campaign in 2015." The report was eventually provided to Lord Rennard and to the four complainants in March 2014 and it did not contain any request or recommendation for an apology - though Webster made this request in his Jan 2014 public statement on conclusions from his investigation. A statement from Lord Rennard in August 2014 said that a Liberal Democrat English Appeals Committee ruling in July 2014 found that "I could not be criticised over my reaction to the previous report by Alistair Webster QC, as I was not given sight of the report for 11 weeks". On 20 January 2014, Rennard was suspended from the Liberal Democrats; he was informed that this was on the basis of "Media and social media comments made by you, endorsed by you and made on your behalf that have attacked the party and the party processes publicly since the announcement of the Webster report results." Lord Rennard's friend and legal adviser, Lord Carlile, wrote a strongly critical article in The Mail on Sunday about "the party's unjust and arbitrary conduct of the case". The week following the suspension, The Times reported from 'allies' of Rennard that the peer knew "where the bodies are buried" and that were he expelled from the Liberal Democrats he would reveal two decades of sex scandal in the Party: "We have had a Cuban missile crisis over the past week." Lord Rennard issued a lengthy personal statement in response to his suspension explaining some of the background to the allegations made against him and the party's handling of them. The seven-month suspension of his party membership was lifted in August 2014, when there was a "No Further Action" decision in relation to his criticisms of party processes and he was