There’s been much chaos and drama this week in Westminster but a hundred miles away from the capital, a far more serious scandal has been playing out in a Derby court. For yesterday, former Conservative minister Andrew Griffiths was found to have raped and physically abused his wife and successor as MP for Burton-upon-Trent, Kate Griffiths. A family court judge concluded the former MP pressurised his now-divorced wife into engaging in sexual activity by using ‘coercive and controlling behaviour.’
The news comes three years after Griffiths had the whip withdrawn and was forced to resign as a minister after sending up to 2,000 sexually explicit texts in a three-week period to two of his female constituents. He had previously been accused of inappropriate touching and bullying of a Conservative borough councillor and the bullying of the leader of another council as well as his former campaign manager. A former chief of staff to Theresa May – who restored the whip to Griffiths hours before her December 2018 confidence vote – he had nevertheless been cleared of wrongdoing by the parliamentary standards watchdog, which said it found no evidence.
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