PM’s right-hand man humiliated over porn tweet
THERESA May’s chief of staff has been caught linking to hardcore porn on Twitter.
A No10 source said Gavin Barwell had hit the “reply” button on a thread of X-rated videos by accident and “regretted the embarrassment” caused by his late-night gaffe.
The videos named the websites Illustrated Interracial, Blacked and Moms Lick Teens.
Married father-of-three Barwell, 46, is one of the highest-paid special advisers in government on £140,000 a year – almost as much as May.
His Twitter actions brought the porn clips to the attention of some of his 22,000 followers.
His reply was blank apart from the Twitter handles of those he replied to, suggesting he hit reply and send but did not write a message in between.
The reply remained up for about 36 hours but was deleted after it was highlighted by journalists yesterday.
The account he replied to, “twinkystar_69”, describes herself as a “virgin F 20 years, bisexual, model cum student”. It is based in Joshpur and Mumbai in India, and has more than 15,000 followers.
The videos in question were posted almost a year ago. It is not known how they came to be in Barwell’s timeline, which shows tweets posted, retweeted or liked by his followers.
Other accounts automatically included in Barwell’s reply also included pornographic material.
A Downing Street source said: “Gavin Barwell replied to this tweet, which was in his timeline, in error.
“He has deleted the reply and regrets the embarrassment this has caused.”
Former housing minister Barwell replaced May’s controversial joint chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill after they quit in the wake of last year’s election.
He lost his own marginal Croydon Central seat to Labour in the election – despite writing a book called How To Win a Marginal Seat.