PM denies being warned about Green a year ago

THERESA May insisted last night that she was not aware of the allegations against Damian Green until his accuser went public.

Kate Maltby claimed in a newspaper article last month that the former minister made unwanted advances by touching her leg and sending a suggestive text after she appeared in a newspaper wearing a corset.

But yesterday the Tory activist went further, saying she told a Downing Street aide about Mr Green in September 2016. In media interviews, Miss Maltby, 31, claimed the aide told her it was part of a pattern of behaviour and that ‘the Prime Minister knows’.

Her claim was emphatically denied by Mrs May. Speaking to reporters during a visit to British troops in Cyprus, the Prime Minister said she had not been told. ‘The first I learned of these allegations was when Kate Maltby wrote about them in the Times,’ she said. ‘I recognise that Kate Maltby was obviously extremely distressed by what happened. Damian Green has recognised that and he has apologised. That is absolutely the right thing to do.’

On Wednesday Mr Green was sacked by Mrs May after the Cabinet Office’s director of propriety and ethics, Sue Gray, concluded he twice failed to tell the truth about pornography found on his Commons computer.

The material was discovered by the police nine years ago in a raid relating to leaks of Home Office papers.

After the allegations emerged, Mr Green twice claimed – wrongly – that he was unaware of the existence of the pornography. On Wednesday he admitted he was told about it as were his lawyers.

The inquiry found Miss Maltby’s claims to be ‘plausible’ but noted that it was ‘not possible to reach a definitive conclusion on the appropriateness’ of the MP’s behaviour.

In his resignation letter Mr Green said he did not recognise Miss Maltby’s account. But he added: ‘I clearly made her feel uncomfortable and for this I apologise.’

Speaking after the inquiry concluded, Miss Maltby said she had not told many people about the alleged incident at the time – except her parents – as she ‘wondered if it was a one-off’.

‘I would never, never have told my story about Damian Green if I did not believe I was exposing a pattern of behaviour of which I thought the Prime Minister was personally aware,’ she told the Daily Telegraph.

In a television interview with the BBC she added: ‘This whole story has been about power. Damian Green became a very, very powerful person. I was aware that there seemed to be an improper mixing of mentorship and sexual advance within the Conservative Party.

‘In his case I was aware that he was the deputy prime minister and I was aware that No 10 knew about it. My actions in this have never been guided by the quest to claim scalps, to force resignations to end people’s careers.

‘We need an end to the era in which the sexual exploitation of younger people is the sort of peccadillo of a politician.

‘That is tolerated by those in power and perhaps exploited to enforce party discipline but not to actually do any good. The reason I didn’t tell many people then, except my parents, is that I wondered if it was a one-off. And, eventually, I spoke to a very senior and longserving aide of Theresa May.’

In her article for the Times, Miss Maltby said Mr Green fleetingly touched her knee during a meeting in a pub in 2015, and a year later sent her the suggestive text.

A Downing Street source said: ‘The Cabinet Office conducted a thorough investigation into a number of allegations about Damian Green. The inquiry findings were published yesterday. The PM has made it clear that everyone should be able to work in politics without fear or harassment – that is why she has brought forward a new code of conduct for the Conservative Party, and set up a crossparty working group to make recommendations.’

Reporting the probe’s findings, Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood said it was ‘not possible to reach a definitive conclusion on the appropriateness of Mr Green’s behaviour with Kate Maltby in early 2015, though the investigation found Miss Maltby’s account to be plausible’.

‘An era of sexual exploitation’