Tories tried to fob me off with a tombola prize, claims Peter Cruddas In March 2012, the Sunday Times alleged Mr Cruddas had offered reporters posing as corporate lobbyists access to the Prime Minister in exchange for £250,000 donations to the Tory Party. The next day Mr Cruddas resigned as party treasurer. Mr Cameron said it was "quite right" that he had quit, adding: "What happened is completely unacceptable." But in July this year Mr Cruddas won a High Court libel action against the paper. Mr Justice Tugendhat said the Prime Minister had subjected the businessman to a "public humiliation." The Prime Minister did not know what Mr Cruddas had said. All he knew was what the Sunday Times had reported," the judge said. Mr Cameron made a public apology to Mr Cruddas and they met at Downing Street the next month with Lord Feldman, the party chairman, and Ed Llewellyn, the No 10 Chief of Staff. Mr Cameron said he did not need to speak to Lord Gold's inquiry into the affair, and said he could return to Tory party events, Mr Cruddas said. He said he explained "in detail and with emotion if not righteous indignation" that the PM's comments "had made things far worse" and threatened to destroy his business. After some weeks Lord Feldman emailed Mr Cruddas, who had sat on the Party Board and the finance committee, and offered him a number of more junior positions, including an honourary position on a sub-committee that oversees bequests to the party. "If you get it wrong, you stand up straight away and make it clear you are trying to put things right," Mr Cruddas wrote. In a just and equitable world the very least would be my reinstatement to the party and the old job. The suggestions [Lord Feldman] put to me reminded me of a tombola at a village fete. It seemed to me as if what they had first pulled out of the sawdust was embarrassingly not good enough, so they had a couple more dips before showing me all of the prizes. But like most tombola stalls, one is only left with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders from the stallholder, and the suggestion/hope that one may be a bit luckier next year. Mr Cruddas said the refusal of Grant Shapps, the co-chairman, and Michael Fallon, the business minister, to apologise on TV after the judgement had been "frankly embarrassing for them and gave a terrible impression of the party." Mr Cruddas said the Prime Minister must still make clear in an "unequivocal public way" that his treatment was "not just wholly wrong but extraordinarily damaging." "It was as if a statement had been read out, saying "Peter Cruddas is guilty as charged - it is open season on him,"" he said. Conservative central office declined to comment. Read the letter in full here.