Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I WAS GROPED AT NUMBER 10
TV executive assaulted by official during Cameron era Suicide MP ‘left note warning wife not to enter’
POLITICIAN Carl Sargeant hanged himself four days after being sacked over groping claims, an inquest was told yesterday.
The former Welsh Assembly minister, 49, was found dead by his wife Bernadette at their home.
With other relatives, she fought desperately to revive the father of two for 20 to 30 minutes.
Mrs Sargeant, 48, had gone downstairs last Tuesday morning and found a note from her husband attached to the utility room door.
It told her not to go in but to call the police. Coroner John Gittins said: “She did go in and found her husband on the floor of the ‘lean to’, which was off the utility room, after an apparent act of self harm.”
A postmortem said hanging was the provisional cause of death.
Four days earlier Mr Sargeant, from Connah’s Quay, North Wales, TV writer Daisy Goodwin has revealed she was “groped in No10” as she attended a business meeting with a government official.
Ms Goodwin, a TV executive and the creator of hit ITV series Victoria, said she was called to No10 during David Cameron’s administration to talk about an idea for a TV programme.
On arrival, she was shown into a room dominated by a portrait of Margaret Thatcher.
Ms Goodwin said: “To my surprise he put his feet on my chair – we were sitting side by side – and said my sunglasses made me look like a Bond Girl.”
She had changed the subject, but then: “At the end of the meeting we both stood up and the official, to my astonishment, put his hand on my breast.
NERVOUS
“I looked at the hand and then in my best Lady Bracknell voice said, ‘Are you actually touching my breast?’”
In the Radio Times, Ms Goodwin, 55, said the official dropped his hand with a nervous laugh. She had then left, in a state of “high dudgeon”. It had not occurred to her to report the incident, but recent revelations about “abusive behaviour” in Westminster and Hollywood had made her think again. She said: “Suppose he tried it on with someone less able to defend themselves?” Ms Goodwin told the Mirror she had no plans to make an official complaint. She said: “I didn’t report the guy as I felt I had punished him myself. As Victoria would say, ‘We are not amused’.” A spokesman for David Cameron said: “This is the first he has heard of this. He is alarmed, shocked and concerned and has made the Cabinet Office aware.” A No10 spokesman said: “The Cabinet Office would look into any formal complaint, should one be made.” had been fired from the Welsh Assembly’s Cabinet over claims of “unwanted attention, inappropriate touching or groping”.
The coroner said he would speak to First Minister Carwyn Jones to ask if Mr Sargeant’s mental state was taken into consideration.