Will we ever hear back from the inquiry into Damian Green, pornography and inappropriate behaviour?

First Minister – and de facto deputy prime minister – Damian Green has been accused of making inappropriate advances [Image: Carl Court/Getty].

On the day a member of Damian Green’s office staff reportedly approached the Cabinet Office inquiry into his behaviour to support his accuser Kate Maltby, it must be worth asking why that inquiry has taken almost a month and a half to report its findings on an open-and-shut case.

Sue Gray, head of propriety and ethics at the Cabinet Office, launched her inquiry on November 1. This Writer understands it is asking whether Mr Green broke the Ministerial Code in his behaviour towards Ms Maltby, who has alleged that incidents took place in early 2015 and May 2016, and in having pornography on a computer in his office, found by police conducting an inquiry into a separate matter in 2008, weeks before the kind of material present was due to be classified as illegal.

The trouble, as This Writer sees it, is that Mr Green was not a minister at the time of any of the incidents, therefore I don’t see how the Ministerial Code applies.

However, if he was making persistent unwanted overtures of a sexual nature to Ms Maltby, then he cannot be said to be innocent of any offence.

And, as it now seems clear that a large amount of extreme pornographic material was indeed found on a computer in a Parliamentary office for which Mr Green was responsible, it seems clear that he should have faced the penalty that any other office worker would have undergone in the same situation: The sack.

I am concerned that the Conservative government, by considering whether the Ministerial Code was breached, is investigating the wrong issue – in order to find that he did not breach the Code and close the matter there.

Questioning about the alleged sexual harassment and the computer porn could then be met with an assertion that these matters were investigated, and Mr Green would effectively get away without having to account for the improprieties alleged against him – or atone for them, if the allegations are accurate.

So it is time for clarity from the person at the top of this inquiry.

Is Sue Gray investigating whether Mr Green harassed a journalist and had porn on his computer?

Or is she engaged in a wild goose chase about a breach of the Ministerial Code when Mr Green wasn’t a minister?

Let us have some answers now – before the inquiry report blows smoke in all our faces.


Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(
but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:

Donate Button with Credit Cards

Here are four ways to be sure you’re among the first to know what’s going on.

1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (in the left margin). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.

2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical

3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/

Join the Vox Political Facebook page.

4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com

And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!

If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!

Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.


The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook

7 thoughts on “Will we ever hear back from the inquiry into Damian Green, pornography and inappropriate behaviour?

  1. Pat Reid

    But…. he was a minister when he outright lied about the porn and tried to blacken an ex policeman’s name!

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      Aha!
      Excellent point.
      Although getting him on that would seem very much like getting Capone on tax evasion.

  2. Barry Davies

    There is no such thing as an open and shut case when it is someone making an allegation, this is how miscarriages of justice occur because people think it is open and shut with only one side of the argument to go on.

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      In terms of the pornography on the computer, we have factual evidence from police officers who examined the machine at the time.
      Regarding the allegation of unwanted sexual overtures, we don’t just have an allegation; we also have corroboration from a member of Mr Green’s own office staff.
      Open-and-shut – in my opinion, of course.

  3. NMac

    I suspect it has been swept under the carpet and they are hoping we will all forget about Dirty Damian Green – I won’t forget it.

Comments are closed.