Did they vet the wrong Ray Lewis?

There is a quite remarkable item in Londoner’s Diary today:

RUMOUR reaches the Londoner that the reason Boris Johnson’s office failed to pick up on the fact former Deputy Mayor Ray Lewis was not a Justice of the Peace is that it conducted a background check on a different Ray Lewis who is a Justice of the Peace in East London. The former deputy mayor for young people, Ray Lewis, gave the Mayor the impression he was a Justice of the Peace, a fact which the Mayor highlighted at his press conference last Thursday.

The next day the Ministry of Justice said “he is not and has never been a magistrate”. It subsequently transpired that the deputy mayor had been recommendedfor appointment as a JP and the appointment was still waiting to be ratified.

Why further checks were not undertaken to establish whether Ray Lewis, a JP in East London, was the same Ray Lewis who held mayoral office at City Hall is not clear.