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Damian Green denies pornography was found on his Commons computer Damian Green urged to step down while porn allegations are investigated
(about 13 hours later)
The first secretary of state, Damian Green, has hit out at claims by a former police chief that pornographic material was found on one of his Commons computers. Two Conservative MPs have called for Damian Green to step down as Theresa May’s deputy while claims of inappropriate behaviour against him are investigated by the party.
The Sunday Times reported on its front page that the ex-Metropolitan police assistant commissioner Bob Quick alleged the material was discovered by officers during an inquiry into government leaks in 2008. The suggestion came as the home secretary, Amber Rudd, confirmed that a wider Cabinet Office inquiry into the conduct of Green, the first secretary of state, would look into allegations that pornography was found on his Commons computer.
Green, who is in effect the deputy prime minister to Theresa May, has strongly denied the claims. Green – who vehemently denies any wrongdoing – has become the focus of a wave of allegations of abuse and harassment in Westminster.
Quick, who headed the leak investigation, told the newspaper that officers had reported finding “extreme porn” on a parliamentary computer from Green’s office. Rudd said on Sunday she believed it was time for wrongdoers to be drummed out of parliament. “I think it is something that will take place in terms of clearing out Westminster of that sort of behaviour, and I think Westminster afterwards – including the government – will be better for it,” she told BBC1’s Andrew Marr Show.
Green said: “This story is completely untrue and comes from a tainted and untrustworthy source. “When we are confident that men and women can work in a respectful environment and people who have been on the receiving end of abuse of power can come forward, that will be a positive thing.”
“I’ve been aware for some years that the discredited former assistant commissioner Bob Quick has tried to cause me political damage by leaking false information about the raid on my parliamentary office. The investigation into Green began earlier in the week when he was accused of inappropriate behaviour towards a young Conservative activist, Kate Maltby.
“No newspaper has printed this story due to the complete lack of any evidence. The Sunday Times also reported that a former Metropolitan police assistant commissioner, Bob Quick, alleged “extreme” pornographic material was found on one of his Commons computers during an inquiry into government leaks in 2008.
“It is well known that Quick, who was forced to apologise for alleging that the Conservative party was trying to undermine him, harbours deep resentment about his press treatment during the time of my investigation. Green has strongly denied the claims, calling Quick “a tainted and untrustworthy source”.
“More importantly, the police have never suggested to me that improper material was found on my parliamentary computer, nor did I have a ‘private’ computer, as has been claimed. Speaking on ITV’s Peston on Sunday show, the Tory backbencher Heidi Allen said that someone facing such accusations “in a regular industry” would step aside from their role during an investigation.
“The allegations about the material and computer, now nine years old, are false, disreputable political smears from a discredited police officer acting in flagrant breach of his duty to keep the details of police investigations confidential, and amount to little more than an unscrupulous character assassination.” “In … the sort of companies I used to work in, that would be completely normal,” she said, telling Green: “If you’re innocent and you have nothing to worry about, then let the process take its natural course, and the right will come out in the end.”
Police controversially searched Green’s Commons office following a spate of leaks of Home Office information. Anna Soubry, another Conservative backbencher, said Green should have stepped aside when the first claims were made, which would have meant the later allegations could have been considered as part of that.
Quick resigned his post with the Metropolitan police in 2009 after he was photographed entering No 10 carrying a secret briefing note on which details of the undercover operation could be seen. “This would have formed part of that inquiry,” she told Marr. “Instead we are pretty much having trial by the newspapers. This is not acceptable.”
The former anti-terror chief is due to give evidence to a Whitehall inquiry launched into Green’s behaviour after a woman alleged that he had made inappropriate advances to her. Rudd said the pornography allegations would form part of the inquiry: “I know that the Cabinet Office is going to be looking at this tomorrow, along with the wider inquiry about Damian, and I do think that we shouldn’t rush to allege anything until that inquiry has taken place.”
The Cabinet Office inquiry was triggered after Kate Maltby, who is three decades younger than the first secretary of state, told the Times that Green “fleetingly” touched her knee during a meeting in a Waterloo pub in 2015, and a year later sent her a “suggestive” text message after she was pictured in the newspaper wearing a corset. More generally, Rudd said, the abuse claims were part of “a wholesale change taking place”.
Green said any allegation that he had made sexual advances to Maltby was untrue and “deeply hurtful”. She said: “What we’ve seen is the abuse of power in particular, and the widespread cultural change that needs to take place as we recognise that. And we will be recognising that. We are going to be making changes and it has to stop.”
However, Rudd rejected the idea that the Tory whips’ office kept a dossier of MPs’ misdeeds that it used to enforce discipline.
“I was a whip myself and I don’t recognise some of those more lurid stories that are told about the short of things whips knew and did,” said Rudd, who was a junior whip briefly in 2013 and 2014. “That isn’t the parliament I know. That isn’t the whips’ office where I worked.”
As well as Green, the Conservatives are investigating two MPs, Dan Poulter and Charlie Elphicke; allegations against the latter have been passed to police. The defence secretary, Michael Fallon, resigned last week amid claims of inappropriate behaviour.
On Sunday it emerged that Fallon’s resignation came after the journalist Jane Merrick told Downing Street he had lunged at her and attempted to kiss her on the lips in 2003 after they had had lunch.
Soubry told Marr that Merrick had initially contacted her and the Labour MP Harriet Harman, before she spoke to No 10.
Soubry said: “To be very clear about this, we cannot have, today, this going on any longer. People must have, today, a system where they don’t have to go to the press in order to make their complaint or happen to find some MP’s telephone number they know will take these matters seriously.”
Labour also faces allegations about several MPs, including Kelvin Hopkins, who was suspended last week over allegations that he rubbed himself against an activist during a hug and sent her inappropriate text messages. The party is under pressure to explain why the Luton North MP was later promoted to the shadow cabinet.
Dawn Butler, the shadow equalities minister, told Marr that while she could not discuss individual cases, MPs would only be promoted if whips told the leader’s office any complaints or issues had been sorted out.
She said: “If there was an issue and the issue has been resolved, that’s the end of the matter. If there’s an issue and it’s ongoing, that’s something very different.” This would suggest “both sides were happy with the outcome”, Butler said.
However, the activist involved, Ava Etemadzadeh, has said she was dismayed when she learned Hopkins had become a shadow minister.