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Parliament’s Independent Expert Panel today recommended that Tory MP Peter Bone is suspended for six weeks for bullying and sexual misconduct.
The former minister could lose his Wellingborough seat as the length of the ban will trigger a recall petition, and potentially set up another tricky by-election for Rishi Sunak.
A report by the Independent Expert Panel watchdog said he ‘committed many varied acts of bullying and one act of sexual misconduct’ against a member of his staff in 2012 and 2013.
It including demanding they give him a massage while in the office and exposing himself while on an overseas trip in Madrid, for which the MP had booked a shared bedroom.
Mr Bone said today that the allegations against him were ‘false and untrue’ and made by an ex-employee who made them ‘years after leaving my unemployment’. He suggested he was seeking legal advice.
But the panel said he had demonstrated a ‘wilful pattern of bullying (that) also included an unwanted incident of sexual misconduct.’
The former minister could lose his Wellingborough seat as the length of the ban will trigger a recall petition, and set up another tricky by-election for Rishi Sunak
He gained a reputation for mentioning ‘Mrs Bone’ – his wife Jenny – in the House of Commons, but they split in 2018 after he left her for Helen Harrison, a married physiotherapist 20 years his junior.
The report noted: ‘The complainant was trapped in a room with the respondent in a hotel in Madrid, not knowing what was going to happen next. This was a deliberate and conscious abuse of power using a sexual mechanism: indecent exposure.
‘It was woven into a pattern of inappropriate behaviour which also included requests for massages of his shoulders and neck and instructions to put hands in laps, including forcibly putting the complainant’s hands in his lap.’
Mr Bone, 70, has been MP for Wellingborough since 2005. A hardline Brexiteer he briefly served as deputy leader of the Commons under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss last year.
He gained a reputation for mentioning ‘Mrs Bone’ – his wife Jenny – in the House of Commons, but they split in 2018 after he left her for Helen Harrison, a married physiotherapist 20 years his junior.
MPs are liable to face a recall petition in their seat if a ban of more than 10s is agreed by a vote of the Commons. The petition needs to be signed by at least 10 per cent of the electorate.
If it passes the threshold it would pave the way for a by-election, the latest to take place in a Tory seat.
The Tories won in Uxbridge but were hammered in Selby and Ainsty, and Somerton and Frome when three were held on the same day in July. Two more will take place this week, in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth, with fears the Tories could lose in two previously safe seats.
Five allegations by a Westminster staffer were made in October 2021, having had a complaint to then-prime minister Theresa May in 2017 unresolved, according to the IEP report.
Five allegations by a Westminster staffer were made in October 2021, having had a complaint to then-prime minister Theresa May in 2017 unresolved, according to the IEP report.
- The complaints included four allegations of bullying, saying Mr Bone:
- ‘Verbally belittled, ridiculed, abused and humiliated’ his employee
- ‘Repeatedly physically struck and threw things’ at him, including hitting him with his hand or an object such as a pencil or a rolled-up document
- Imposed an ‘unwanted and humiliating ritual’ on him by forcing him to sit with his hands in his lap when the MP was unhappy with his work
- Ostracised the complainant following an incident on a work trip to Madrid.
In the Madrid incident upheld by the panel Mr Bone booked a twin room for himself and the aide, who was then aged in their 20s, some 40 years younger than the MP.
He asked the aide to examine a faulty tap in the bathroom before removing his towel and exposing himself.
The report noted: ‘In the first place it is remarkable that a senior MP in
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