Women’s campaigner who played the devoted husband

ANDREW Griffiths portrayed himself as an ale-loving family man. The MP was chairman of the all-party beer group, and named parliamentarian of the year by the Campaign for Real Ale following his bid to reduce tax hikes on beer.

He was also a devoted husband and father, it seemed, telling of his joy just weeks ago at the arrival of his long-awaited first child with wife Kate, 47.

The couple had been trying for a baby for years before Alice was born in April.

‘We are so delighted to have her and have brought her home. Her middle name, Harriet, is after my mother who is no longer with us, and we thought it would be a lovely tribute to her,’ he told his local paper.

His wife – whose Facebook profile picture is of the couple of

their wedding day four years ago – had been subjected to vile abuse by Left-wing trolls during her pregnancy.

One told Mrs Griffiths, ‘Hope your baby dies’ after her husband clashed with Jeremy Corbyn in the Commons. Mr Griffiths said it was ‘ horrific’ but praised his wife’s strength.

He also regularly extolled the virtues of family, and campaigned to get more women involved in politics.

The MP for Burton and Uttoxeter, who voted against same sex marriage in 2013, once wrote in his local paper: ‘For most people, their number one priority in life is looking after their family and making sure they are healthy and happy.’

Before the Sunday Mirror’s revelations, the MP had been considered a rising star in the Conservative Party.

Mr Griffiths is originally from Dudley, where his father was once mayor. After working at his family engineering business and then for a building society, he became an adviser to MEPs in 1999.

He was appointed Theresa May’s chief of staff in the shadow cabinet in 2004 and helped her set up Women2Win, a campaign aimed at getting more Conservative women elected to parliament. He became an MP in 2010 and was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy in January this year by Mrs May, who he was pictured with on his Twitter page. But the account had been deleted and his career was in tatters last night.

In some of his messages to the two barmaids, he bragged about being able to help them financially in return for sexually explicit images. And after being sent a video of one of the women spanking the other he said it was ‘was nowhere near hard enough’ before asking: ‘Can she take a beating? I have to be slightly careful in my job’.