Harassment reports rock United Kingdom Parliament as scandal spreads

The scandal surrounding Britain’s political class deepened Sunday with more allegations of sexual harassment, abuse of power and other misdeeds, including new claims involving a key ally of Prime Minister Theresa May.

The allegations dating back more than a decade involve behaviour that ranges from inappropriate touching and sending suggestive text messages to matters serious enough to be reported to police for possible prosecution.

First Secretary of State Damian Green, a senior Cabinet figure who is in effect May’s deputy, emphatically denied a Sunday Times report that police had found “extreme” pornography on his computer during an investigation nine years ago. He said he is the victim of a smear campaign.

Green already was being investigated for alleged inappropriate advances on a Conservative Party activist. He called the Sunday Times story “completely untrue” and said it came from an untrustworthy, tainted police source.

“The allegations about the material and computer, now nine years old, are false, disreputable political smears from a discredited police officer acting in flagrant breach of his duty to keep the details of police investigations confidential, and amount to little more than an unscrupulous character assassination,” Green said.

An official Cabinet Office inquiry into Green’s behaviour started after a woman complained that Green touched her knee at a meeting in a pub and later sent her an inappropriate text message.