Porn claims about Green sound ‘fishy’, claims Hoey
ULSTER-BORN Labour MP Kate Hoey described the situation embattled cabinet Minister Damian Green has been placed in by police claims about porn on his House of Commons computer as “fishy”.
“I remember the time when his office was raided”, the Labour MP told a BBC Any Questions audience in Newry last night.
“The police behaved wrongly then, and some of them have felt very aggrieved. I just think the whole thing is a little fishy, and I feel that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
Friends of Mr Green, who appeared at the DUP annual conference in Belfast last weekend, spoke out yesterday, among them DUP MP Nigel Dodds.
Also speaking on BBC Any Questions, Mr Dodds said that if Mr Green was forced to resign over the police claims, it would set a very dangerous precedent.
“Every single individual is entitled to due process under the law. If we get into a situation where Damian Green is forced to resign, then this sets a very, very dangerous precedent indeed.
“When that happens to a senior politician, then nobody is going to speak up for the ordinary individual in future, if that’s what happens.”
Mr Dodds criticised the decision of retired Scotland Yard detective Neil Lewis to tell the BBC he was “shocked” at the volume of porn found in a 2008 raid on Mr Green’s Westminster office, and had “no doubt whatsoever” it was amassed by the Tory MP.
Mr Green, who is the subject of a Cabinet Office inquiry into alleged inappropriate behaviour towards a young female activist, has denied looking at or downloading porn on the computer.
Mr Dodds said: “It is totally wrong that an individual police officer should go out and make public statements like this.
“People are entitled to privacy, so long as they are not breaking the law. It is not for individual police officers to decide what should or should not be deemed worthy of publication.”
The Metropolitan Police Service said it was launching its own inquiry into how information gathered during an investigation was made public.