SNP probed sex pest MP four years ago.. and let him keep job
Grady sent on behaviour course but stood again
AN SNP MP found guilty of sexual harassment was put on “conduct training” four years ago over the same incident and kept his job as chief whip.
Allegations against Patrick Grady were dealt with informally by the SNP and he later fronted a debate on the harassment of staff.
Lib Dem Alistair Carmichael MP said: “It is the height of hypocrisy for the SNP to have conducted an informal investigation, covered up the result and then allowed the perpetrator to lead for the party on debates about bullying of staff.”
As revealed by the Record, an SNP staffer claimed the Glasgow North MP had put his fingers down his collar and touched his hair in London’s Water Poet bar in 2016 when he was 19.
A formal complaint to Westminster authorities has reportedly been upheld and referred to an independent panel. Grady stood aside as chief whip when the allegations emerged.
The staffer claimed the SNP tried to resolve the matter informally at a meeting he attended with a tearful Grady and party Westminster leader Ian Blackford. The complainer said Grady apologised but added: “I wouldn’t view this as mediation – I would view it as ambush.” The Record understands Grady took part in a behaviourrelated training course in 2018. But he stayed in post as the SNP’s discipline enforcer, stood again at the 2019 general election and was elected to a wider role.
Grady also made a speech on a report on the bullying and harassment of MPs’ staff.
In the Commons in July 2019, he said MPs should not be “blind” to the “occasional possibility of vexatious or malicious complaints”.
He said of the report: “Sadly, it contains accounts of behaviours that many of us will have heard about and perhaps some of us will have witnessed.
“Bullying, harassment and a toxic culture of insecurity and undermining have been found to be commonplace and they are all perhaps manifestations of deeper-rooted cultures and behaviours associated with the abuse of power.”
He also said: “Perhaps, on reflection, some of us will recognise our own behaviours.”
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said the revelations raise “deeply worrying questions”.
She said: “Even now, the SNP seem desperate to turn a blind eye to the allegations against Grady and continue as normal.”
Tory MSP Annie Wells added: “It looks more like a cover-up with each revelation that emerges.”
An SNP spokesman said: “It would not be legally appropriate to comment while the independent parliamentary process is ongoing.”