Met knew about honeytrap threat last year... but did NOT warn MPs

PoLICe were made aware of honeytrap messages targeting figures in Westminster late last year but did not warn MPs, it emerged last night.

Reports in october and november saw scotland Yard inform Commons security staff, but the alarm was not escalated to MPs as there was no indication the messages were part of a ‘wider pattern’.

It was not until media reports of the ‘spear phishing’ scam this month that many realised they had been targeted.

Parliamentary authorities did not raise the alarm because the Met was leading on the investigation and did not give the impression the messages were of sufficient concern, it is understood. one victim yesterday accused the Met of ‘sitting on their hands’. The former MP added: ‘You would have thought they’d have a duty to report any concerns so MPs could protect themselves. How many MPs have potentially fallen victim because the police didn’t act sooner?’

A Met spokesman said: ‘The Met had previously received reports from two victims – the first in october with subsequent reports in november and March – about the unsolicited sending of explicit images to MPs. There was nothing to suggest that those incidents were part of a wider pattern of offending that would have necessitated any sort of warning to Parliamentarians and staff.’

At least 20 people, including a serving minister and MPs, have been contacted by a person calling themselves ‘Charlie’ or ‘Abi’. Last week, William Wragg, then a Tory MP, admitted supplying phone numbers of colleagues to the honeytrapper after sending intimate messages to the person on gay dating app Grindr.

He apologised, saying he had gone along with it because the man had ‘compromising’ pictures of him. He resigned the Conservative whip this week.