PORN ROW DEPUTY PM GREEN QUITS
Deputy PM shock ‘sacking’
THERESA May last night sacked her deputy Damian Green after he was found to have misled the public over porn on an office computer.
The First Secretary of State was “asked to resign” by the PM after a seven-week Cabinet Office probe.
It found he made “inaccurate and misleading” comments when he claimed the allegations were “completely untrue”.
Last night he continued to deny “unfounded and deeply hurtful” claims that he downloaded or viewed porn.
Police originally raided his parliamentary office in 2008 in a probe about leaks and found “extreme” porn when a computer was examined, it was alleged.
A formal investigation by Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood found that statements Mr Green made about the issue on November 4 and 11 were “inaccurate and misleading”.
He had breached the ministerial code, it ruled.
Mr Green, 61, MP for Ashford, said in a letter to the PM last night: “I apologise that my statements were misleading on this point.”
His sudden departure ® is a major blow to Mrs May. She brought her old pal – a trusted friend for the last 30 years – onto the top table of UK politics. Mrs May said last night it was “with deep regret, and enduring gratitude” that she accepted his resignation. The official investigation into Mr Green was triggered after Kate Maltby, 30 years his junior, claimed he “fleetingly” touched her knee during a meeting in a pub in 2015, and a year later sent her a “suggestive” text message after she was pictured wearing a corset in a newspaper. He is the third Cabinet minister to leave the government since the start of last month after the departures of defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon and international development secretary Priti Patel. Last night Liberal Democrat chief whip Alistair Carmichael said: “Christmas can’t come early enough for Theresa May as her Cabinet continues to crumble. “Midwinter is going to be especially bleak for a government barely holding itself together.”