\n
The investigation conducted interviews with the complainant, eye witnesses and Bell. It also reviewed WhatsApp messages between those involved.<\/p>\n
Bell told the investigator \u201cI was clearly drunk\u201d and that he could not \u201crecall everything about the evening\u201d.<\/p>\n
The report states: \u201cHe said he remembered touching the complainant\u2019s thigh, \u201cprobably her waist\u201d, but he denied touching her bottom.<\/p>\n
“His account was that there was mutual flirting, which led to his touching the complainant. <\/p>\n
“But in relation to his suggestion of flirting, he added that: \u2018Probably, to be fair, more from me to her than the other way round\u2019. <\/p>\n
“The complainant denied any mutual flirting or encouragement in any way.”<\/p>\n
The complainant told the investigator she felt \u201creally uncomfortable\u201d and called his conduct \u201cincredibly brazen\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reviewing the investigation, the parliamentary commissioner for standards said the MP’s claim of mutual flirting was “contradicted by the complainant\u2019s evidence and by that of the two eyewitnesses”. <\/p>\n
“Further, the commissioner stated that the respondent\u2019s description of the alleged mutual flirting was \u2018too general to be persuasive and, in any event, would not justify touching without specific consent\u2019,” the report said.<\/p>\n
Bell was first elected to Parliament in 2019, winning the former Labour stronghold of Newcastle-Under-Lyme in Staffordshire.<\/p>\n
He was highly critical of Boris Johnson over his handling of the Partygate scandal and in February 2022 called on the then-prime minister to step down.<\/p>\n
He served in the whip’s office – the team responsible for managing party discipline – from November 2023 until July 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Published at Tue, 29 Oct 2024 12:25:32 +0000<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Tory MP reprimanded for sexual misconduct Kate Whannel Politics reporter 29 October 2024, 11:39 GMT Updated 41 minutes ago Former Conservative MP Aaron Bell has been reprimanded by Parliament’s standards watchdog for “brazen and drunken” sexual misconduct. Bell was found to have touched a woman “on her left thigh, waist and bottom inappropriately and… Continue reading Former Tory MP reprimanded for sexual misconduct<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk-politics","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/260web.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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