Tory MP, Damian Green, sacked amid computer porn allegations

Damian Green has been sacked from the British Government by Theresa May and admitted he made "misleading" statements about allegations pornography was found on his Commons computer in 2008.

Tory MP, Damian Green, sacked amid computer porn allegations

Damian Green has been sacked from the British Government by Theresa May and admitted he made "misleading" statements about allegations pornography was found on his Commons computer in 2008.

He will leave his role as the UK’s First Secretary of State after independent adviser on ministers’ interests, Sir Alex Allan, found he had breached the ministerial code.

Mr Green has described allegations that he downloaded or viewed pornography on his parliamentary computer as "unfounded and deeply hurtful", but admitted he had not been clear in his past statements on the issue.

Mr Green said he "regrets" having been asked to resign and apologised for breaches of the ministerial code.

In a letter to the British PM, he went on: "From the outset I have been clear that I did not download or view pornography on my parliamentary computers.

"I accept that I should have been clear in my press statements that police lawyers talked to my lawyers in 2008 about the pornography on the computers, and that the police raised it with me in a subsequent phone call in 2013.

"I apologise that my statements were misleading on this point.

"The unfounded and deeply hurtful allegations that were being levelled at me were distressing both to me and my family and it is right that these are being investigated by the Metropolitan Police’s professional standards department."

Mrs May said she had "carefully considered" the findings of an investigation by Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood into statements Mr Green made on November 4 and 11, which he has now accepted were "inaccurate and misleading".

The PM went on: "This falls short of the Seven Principles of Public Life and is a breach of the ministerial code - a conclusion which has been endorsed by Sir Alex Allan, the independent adviser on ministers’ interests.

"While I can understand the considerable distress caused to you by some of the allegations which have been made in recent weeks, I know that you share my commitment to maintaining the high standards which the public demands of ministers of the Crown.

"It is therefore with deep regret, and enduring gratitude for the contribution you have made over many years, that I asked you to resign from the Government and have accepted your resignation."

The inquiry was triggered after Kate Maltby, who is three decades younger than Mr Green, claimed he "fleetingly" touched her knee during a meeting in a pub in 2015, and a year later sent her a "suggestive" text message after she was pictured wearing a corset in a newspaper.

The Cabinet Secretary said that with "competing and contradictory accounts of what were private meetings" it was "not possible to reach a definitive conclusion on the appropriateness of Mr Green’s behaviour with Kate Maltby in early 2015, though the investigation found Ms Maltby’s account to be plausible".

Overall Mr Green’s conduct as a minister "has generally been both professional and proper", it said.

Mr Green apologised to Ms Maltby.

"I deeply regret the distress caused to Kate Maltby following her article about me and the reaction to it," he said.

"I do not recognise the events she described in her article, but I clearly made her feel uncomfortable and for this I apologise."

Mrs May said: "You have expressed your regret for the distress caused to Ms Maltby following her article about you and the reaction to it.

"I appreciate that you do not recognise the events Ms Maltby described in the article, but you do recognise that you made her feel uncomfortable and it is right that you have apologised."

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