Lord Rennard did not resign purely on health grounds, Nick Clegg admits Nick Clegg arrives at the LBC studios in London for his weekly phone-in show. Nick Clegg has admitted that the Liberal Democrats' former chief executive, Lord Rennard, did not resign from the party purely on health grounds, as the deputy prime minister insisted at the weekend. Clegg, who has rejected claims of a cover-up after criticism that he and his party did not do enough when confronted with allegations of sexual harassment against Rennard, had maintained that the peer, who resigned months after being confronted by Clegg's then chief of staff, Danny Alexander, in December 2008, stood down for health reasons. But on Monday the Guardian reported that senior Lib Dems suggested Rennard quit after pressure from Clegg's office. Speaking on his weekly phone-in on LBC radio, the deputy prime minister said: "He left on health grounds but of course the issues of his inappropriate behaviour were in the background." His words are likely to reinforce questions about his handling of the issue. He faced criticism after Lib Dem officials spent three days insisting Clegg had not known about complaints over Rennard's behaviour before he admitted on Sunday that he had been made aware of "indirect and non-specific concerns" in 2008. Rennard denies all accusations. During the phone-in, the Lib Dem leader was forced to justify his response to the claims despite his attempts to draw a line under the issue ahead of the Eastleigh byelection by launching two investigations. He denied he knew about the allegations of sexual harassment in 2007, contradicting an account given to the Telegraph by former MP and party spokeswoman Sandra Gidley. Clegg said: "I can only tell you the truth as I recollect it now ... My recollection is that 2008 is the year the allegations were brought to my attention." He also insisted specific allegations put by the Telegraph to Jonny Oates, his chief of staff, in 2010, were not passed on to him, implicitly criticising Oates for the failure. He admitted to "very serious mistakes" highlighting problems with the party's channels of communication Clegg defended his failure to launch a full investigation in 2008, saying that the women making the claims did not wish to take the matter forward but "just wanted the inappropriate behaviour from Lord Rennard to stop." He said: "You can only launch investigations into allegations when they've been made ... That is not something that happened as far as I am concerned until last Thursday [when Channel 4 ran the story]." He added: "We acted ... as we could with what we were told at the time. The women have been let down, there have been some serious mistakes.