British Labor MP Chris Matheson announced his resignation on Friday after an investigation concluded he should be suspended from Parliament for “serious sexual misconduct”.
“While I believe this is an excessive and unfair sanction … the honorable and correct thing to do now is to resign from my position,” he said in a statement.
The resignation followed the publication of a report by an independent jury that recommended the suspension from Parliament for four weeks of the deputy for finding him guilty of “unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances”.
A young publicist is said to have filed a complaint about several incidents of sexual harassment, including an alleged invitation “for sexual reasons” to a secret trip abroad.
“This case involves a serious breach of the Sexual Misconduct Policy, with several aggravating factors. The impact of the misconduct was significant,” says the report, produced at the request of the British parliament.
Matheson, 54, has been an MP for the Chester constituency in north-west England since 2015. The resignation triggers a parliamentary by-election in that constituency, the date of which has yet to be determined.
The Times newspaper reported in April that 56 British MPs were being investigated internally in parliament over allegations of sexual misconduct following around 70 allegations of sexual harassment and more serious offences.
A series of sex scandals involving MPs, mostly from the Conservative Party, have come to light in recent years and have resulted in their resignations.
Imran Khan was convicted of sexually harassing a 15-year-old boy, Neil Parish admitted to viewing pornography on his cell phone inside the House of Commons, and Charlie Elphicke was convicted in 2020 of sexually assaulting two women, one of whom was advisor.
Source: TSF
