A Conservative MP has claimed he was groped on two occasions by Chris Pincher, who was suspended from the party on Friday following sexual misconduct allegations.
Speaking exclusively to The Independent on the condition of anonymity, the man claims he was targeted twice by Mr Pincher, first in December 2021 and again last month.
One alleged assault took place within the Parliamentary estate in June, when the man claims Mr Pincher deliberately touched his genitals through his clothing and refused to remove his hand when asked.
“He put his hand on my crotch and moved it around,” the MP said.
“I shook my head and said no, I don’t want that, but he [Mr Pincher] just smiled… he carried on until I was able to move away.”
During the first alleged incident, on an evening in December 2021 near Tory-linked private members’ club the Carlton Club, the man said he was groped repeatedly, with Mr Pincher’s hand placed “firmly” on his backside.
“It was really late, and I’d worked stupid hours for days. I’d been drinking with a range of Westminster colleagues and it got very hazy. I remember suddenly being sharply aware of being touched in a sexual way,” the MP said.
On both occasions, the touching was prolonged and sexually intimate, the man claimed, and he said he was limited in his capacity to resist after drinking.
Mr Pincher firmly denies the allegations.
The MP’s account comes amid a slew of claims about Mr Pincher’s behaviour since his resignation as deputy chief whip on Friday morning, following allegations that he had groped two men while drunk on Wednesday evening.
The prime minister suspended Mr Pincher from the party, but only after a call from a Tory MP who gave a “disturbing” account of his behaviour, a Downing Street source told the PA news agency. The events on 30 June allegedly took place at the Carlton Club, a private members club in central London, often frequented by Tory MPs, aides and activists.
In May, news site Politico reported that an MP, later revealed to be Mr Pincher, had been given a minder to try to prevent him from drinking too much and getting into trouble.
In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Mr Pincher wrote that he was standing down from the role because he “drank far too much” and had “embarrassed” himself and others.
Earlier today, he said he was “truly sorry”, adding he was seeking medical support and would co-operate fully with the parliamentary inquiry into the allegations.
The MP who has made the latest allegations said he felt now was the right time to speak out about Mr Pincher’s alleged behaviour because there may be other victims, and because there is a wider problem of people turning “a blind eye to the abuse of younger men by older men” within parliament.
He said: “We’re quite rightly more alert to the abuse of young women working in Westminster. We are starting to learn to spot the signs of older men targeting them. We’re blind, even more uncomfortable, with the idea that men target men.
“I think people are scared that calling out abusive behaviour will be seen as homophobic,” he added.
The MP said he previously mentioned that he was groped by Mr Pincher to a fellow Tory MP but it was “shrugged off” because “he was a known quantity”.
He said he had not pursued a complaint through the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS) or the police to avoid the harm of being personally exposed.
