Video: Toronto Mayor pipes up over crack claims

Mr Ford, a populist mayor who has repeatedly made headlines for his bizarre behaviour, yelled to waiting reporters outside his home in Toronto as they quizzed him about the video - but he has vowed not to step down.

The mayor refused to answer questions posed by reporters.

As he walked towards waiting reporters and photographers, he yelled: "Get off my driveway. What don't you understand? Get off my property."

Police chief Bill Blair said that the video, recovered after being deleted from a computer hard drive, did not provide grounds to press charges.

Later, speaking outside the door of his office, Mr Ford said with a smile: "I have no reason to resign."

He said he could not defend himself because the affair is part of a criminal investigation involving an associate, adding: "That's all I can say right now."

Toronto police discovered the video while conducting a huge surveillance operation into a friend and sometime driver suspected of providing Mr Ford with drugs.

The mayor faced allegations in May that he had been caught on video puffing from a glass crack pipe.

Two reporters said they saw the video, but it has not been released publicly. Mr Ford maintained he does not smoke crack and that the video did not exist.

The scandal has cast Canada's largest city and financial capital in an unflattering light.

Mr Ford was elected mayor three years ago on a wave of discontent simmering in the city's outlying suburbs.

Since then he has survived an attempt to remove him from office on conflict-of-interest charges and has appeared in the news for his increasingly odd behaviour.

Through it all, the mayor has repeatedly refused to resign and pledged to run for re-election next year.

But the pressure increased yesterday with all four major daily newspapers calling on him to resign.