Teary porn probe Tory MP apologies to his wife over claims he watched x-rated video in the Commons

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The Conservative MP caught watching porn in the House of Commons broke down in tears yesterday as he told his wife: ‘I’m sorry you married a f****** idiot.’

Neil Parish, 65, was yesterday unmasked as the Tory accused by female colleagues earlier this week of viewing explicit content in Parliament on at least two occasions.

A grandfather who has campaigned passionately for better rural broadband, he has now been stripped of the Tory whip and has referred himself to the MPs’ Committee on Standards.

He rejected calls to resign immediately, however, claiming that he had opened pornographic content on his phone ‘in error’. He did not elaborate further.

Sue, his wife of 40 years who works as his secretary, indicated yesterday that she will stand by him. ‘If you were mad with every man who looked at pornography, you would not have many wives in the world,’ she said.

Mr Parish admitted that as reports emerged yesterday naming him as the MP in question, he was unable to contact his wife because his phone battery was flat.

By the time he arrived home from a constituency surgery, Mrs Parish had already learned the news. Having reached their red-brick farmhouse in Stretcholt near Bridgwater, Somerset, Mr Parish broke down in tears and told her: ‘I’m sorry you married a f****** idiot.’

Addressing reporters yesterday, Mr Parish said: ‘I have to apologise to my wife more than anybody for putting her through all of this.’

Adding that he understood the upset he had caused more widely, he nevertheless stressed that he would ‘carry on doing my duties as MP for Tiverton and Honiton’ with the ‘full support of my wonderful wife’.

Mrs Parish admitted the incident was ‘all very embarrassing’ but said it would be ‘a bit stupid’ to let it come between them. ‘I don’t understand [the attraction of] it. I’m a woman… it’s degrading. It’s demeaning. But on the other hand it takes two to tango. There must be women posing for all this,’ she told The Times.

Of whether she was aware of her husband having watched porn before, she said: ‘No. He’s quite a normal guy, really. He’s a lovely person. It’s just so stupid.

‘I’m fairly tough. You’ve got to carry on, haven’t you? Where that leaves [his career]… what’s going to happen, I’ve got no idea.’

A close friend who visited the couple yesterday said: ‘As you can imagine, the atmosphere in there was somewhat tense. But they are a very close couple, and after ten years in Parliament an incident like this is not going to derail their marriage.’

Yesterday’s developments followed days of speculation about the identity of the Tory seen viewing explicit content in the Commons. 

Of why he had not come forward sooner – or quit – Mr Parish, who gave a TV interview earlier this week calling for the man in question to be ‘dealt with seriously’, said: ‘I wasn’t going to until such time as I had referred myself to the authorities. I will not remain if I am found guilty [by the Committee on Standards].’

In addition to referring himself to that panel, Mr Parish has also been referred to Parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievances Scheme. 

It follows the claim from two female MPs that they had seen a colleague watching porn in the Commons chamber. One reported having also seen him looking at indecent images during a committee hearing.

Appearing on GB News earlier this week, Mr Parish himself said he backed Tory whips to conduct a ‘thorough investigation’.

He then added: ‘If you’ve got sort of 650 members of parliament in what is a very intense area, you are going to get people that step over the line…

‘I don’t think there’s necessarily a huge culture (of misogyny) here but I think it does have to be dealt with and dealt with seriously. That’s what the whips will do.’ 

Yesterday it emerged that Mr Parish – the chairman of the Commons environment, food and rural affairs committee, and a member of the powerful liaison committee – had spoken to Tory chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris about the claims.

A spokesman for Mr Heaton-Harris confirmed that Mr Parish had been suspended by his party while the allegations are investigated. 

On Thursday, the Prime Minister had said of the claims: ‘We need to get to understand the facts… but that kind of behaviour is clearly totally unacceptable.’

Before becoming an MP in 2010, Mr Parish had served as an MEP for south-west England for a decade. At the last election he amassed 61 per cent of the vote, sealing a majority of almost 25,000.

Educated at Brymore, an agricultural state boarding school in Somerset, he left at 16 to manage the family farm he still calls home. He and Sue have two children, Jonathan and Harriet, and two grandchildren.

Until yesterday, the most publicity the MP received outside Westminster was when he risked being shot by police protecting Jeremy Hunt after he joined the then foreign secretary’s motorcade without authorisation in 2019.

As well as calls for faster rural broadband, he has campaigned on issues such as flooding, air quality and animal welfare. He also has a keen interest in African politics – but was banned from Zimbabwe in 2008 for his criticism of Robert Mugabe’s dictatorship.

News of his standards investigation came as a female Cabinet minister revealed that she had once been ‘pinned up against a wall’ by a male MP.

International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan urged colleagues to ‘keep your hands in your pockets’ as she complained about sexism in Parliament, telling LBC Radio: ‘I’ve witnessed and been at the sharp end of misogyny from some colleagues many times over. 

‘We might describe it as wandering hands, if you like, we might describe it as, you know, a number of years ago being pinned up against a wall by a male MP – who is now no longer in the House, I’m pleased to say – declaring that I must want him because he was a powerful man. These sorts of things, these power abuses, that a very small minority, thank goodness, of male colleagues show is completely unacceptable.’

She said most of her male colleagues are ‘delightful’ and ‘committed parliamentarians’, but added: ‘There are a few for whom too much drink, or indeed a sort of a view that somehow being elected makes them, you know, God’s gift to women, that they can suddenly please themselves. That is never OK, that kind of behaviour, disrespect for women.’

Her Cabinet colleague Ben Wallace said earlier in the week that ‘there’s no place for pornography in any workplace’. 

Highlighting the need for change at Westminster, the Defence Secretary told Sky News: ‘This is a problem, I think, about the overall culture of the House of Commons. It is late sitting, long nights with bars, and that very often leads, and it has done for decades, to behavioural challenges.’

Tory MP Pauline Latham had said the then-unnamed man who had watched porn should resign, telling GB News: ‘They should go… their ministerial career is absolutely shot and their parliamentary career probably. It’s just not excusable in any way. It’s totally shocking.’

Shadow Commons Leader Thangam Debbonaire said: ‘The Conservatives knew for days about the disgusting behaviour of one of their MPs and tried to cover it up…

‘This is a government rotting from the head down. Britain deserves better.’

Though the allegations are still be to investigated, Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said Boris Johnson must order his MP to quit.

‘If Boris Johnson had any shred of decency left, he would tell Neil Parish to resign immediately,’ she said.

‘In any other workplace this would count as gross misconduct and the person responsible would lose their job. Parliament should be no different.

‘We don’t need to insult the women MPs who witnessed this with a lengthy investigation. All his bosses need to do is ask for his devices and look at his viewing history, this isn’t rocket science.’

Tory MP Caroline Nokes, chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, said she had been ‘disappointed’ that the whip was not suspended immediately but was now ‘very relieved’.

She told ITV News: ‘I’ve been calling for the Chief Whip to remove the whip from when we first heard about this incident…

‘I’m pleased that action has been taken and I hope that the two women who complained are being supported through the system as well.’

It is understood a process has now been launched through Parliament’s independent complaints and grievance scheme (ICGS). 

Meanwhile, there have been complaints that Mr Heaton-Harris had kicked the scandal ‘into the long grass’ by referring it to the Parliamentary grievance process rather than taking action. 

It appears the IGCS inquiry has now been triggered with at least one of the witnesses making a complaint. 

But a second investigation could be launched after Mr Parish’s commitment to refer himself to the Standards Committee.

It is unclear what potential breach of the MPs’ code of conduct he would report himself for.

But it is thought one option for Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone could be whether Mr Parish caused ‘significant damage to the reputation and integrity’ of the Commons.

MPs have reacted with revulsion to the claims that a Tory had been caught by two of his female colleagues watching porn in the House of Commons.

On a visit to Burnley on Thursday, the PM told broadcasters: ‘I think it’s obviously unacceptable for anybody to be doing that kind of thing in the workplace.

‘It would be the same for any kind of job up and down the country, let’s be absolutely clear about that.

‘What needs to happen now is that the proper procedures need to be gone through, the independent complaints and grievances procedure needs to be activated and we need to get to understand the facts but, yeah, that kind of behaviour is clearly totally unacceptable.’

Attorney General Suella Braverman said if the MP was found to have been watching adult material it should result in them ‘no longer holding their privileged position as a Member of Parliament’.

She said there was a ‘very small minority of men – and it is men – who fall short and there are some bad apples who are out of order – who behave like animals, and are bringing Parliament into disrepute to be honest’.

Tory MP Nickie Aiken said earlier that the alleged porn-watching MP ‘has to resign’ from the Commons as she warned that he was causing ‘pain, suffering and embarrassment’ to both the party and Parliament.

He should ‘take a very very long, hard look’ at himself and ask ‘should I still be here?’, she told Times Radio.

Cabinet minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan reveals she was ‘pinned up against a wall’ by male MP as she reads riot act to sleazy politicians 

A Cabinet minister today revealed she was once ‘pinned up against the wall’ by a male MP.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan said the vast majority of her male colleagues are ‘delightful’ and ‘committed parliamentarians’.

But she said a few behaved badly when they had ‘too much drink’, insisting people should act ‘as if their daughter was in the room’. 

Ms Trevelyan spoke about one extraordinary incident when she was ‘pinned up against a wall’ by a man who is now no longer an MP. 

Ms Trevelyan told Sky News of male MPs: ‘There are a few for whom too much drink, or indeed a sort of, a view that somehow being elected makes them you know, God’s gift to women, that they can suddenly please themselves, that is never OK, that kind of behaviour, disrespect for women.’

She added: ‘Fundamentally, if you’re a bloke, keep your hands in your pockets and behave as you would if you had your daughter in the room.’

Ms Trevelyan told LBC Radio: ‘I’ve witnessed and been at the sharp end of misogyny from some colleagues many times over’.

‘We might describe it as wandering hands, if you like, we might describe it as, you know, a number of years ago being pinned up against a wall by a male MP who is now no longer in the House, I’m pleased to say, declaring that I must want him because he was a powerful man’.

‘These sorts of things, these power abuses that a very small minority, thank goodness, of male colleagues show is completely unacceptable.’

She advised women subjected to that kind of behaviour to ‘make public humiliation one of your tools’.

However, while Ms Trevelyan described watching porn in the Commons chamber as ‘completely unacceptable’, she declined to say whether the MP involved should be sacked.