Banned for a month, the MSP shamed over texts to woman
(...as he still insists that the messages weren’t sexual)
DISGRACED former SNP minister Mark McDonald is facing a one-month suspension as an MSP after a standards watchdog found him guilty of sexual harassment.
Mr McDonald was castigated for creating an ‘intimidating, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment’ with messages he sent to a fellow MSP’s member of staff.
Holyrood’s Standards Committee has also proposed one of the most severe punishments ever handed out to an MSP after an investigation found the texts ‘involved sexual harassment’.
Mr McDonald, who was forced to resign as early years minister in November and later quit the SNP, now faces being suspended without pay for one month of parliament business.
He yesterday accepted the Commissioner’s findings but shamelessly denied the message constituted sexual harassment.
Some MSPs are now considering pushing for a more severe punishment when they vote on the issue next Wednesday. Bill Thomson, the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland, issued his damning verdict on Mr McDonald’s conduct yesterday.
He found private messages sent to the female staff member had been ‘unwanted and disrespectful’ and ‘involved an element of sexual innuendo and, therefore, of conduct of a sexual nature’.
He also found a second breach of the code of conduct for MSPs for failing to treat one of his own members of staff with respect by asking her to pay £476 for a flat deposit and not reimbursing her for around 24 days.
After receiving the Commissioner’s report, the Standards Committee proposed that Mr McDonald be excluded from parliament proceedings and from entering the Holyrood building for one month, and also have his £62,149 salary docked for one month, meaning he will lose nearly £5,200 of his earnings.
During yesterday’s Standards Committee, convener Claire Haughey said: ‘The committee is unanimous in the decisions reached on the complaint.
‘Firstly, it agrees with both the findings in fact and the conclusion of the Commissioner that Mark McDonald failed to treat one witness with respect, and that his conduct towards her involved sexual harassment, and that he also failed to treat a second witness with respect in relation to a financial matter.
‘The committee agrees with the Commissioner’s finding that both behaviours were in breach of the Code of Conduct for MSPs.’
All MSPs will vote next Wednesday on the sanctions proposed.
If approved, it will be the first time an MSP has been banned from Holyrood since four Scottish Socialist MSPs received the same sanction for one month in 2005, for disrupting business with a protest against the G8 summit in Gleneagles.
Labour MSP Rhoda Grant said: ‘It is right that he faces a sanction for his behaviour, but the reality is that the proposed action does not go far enough.
‘Anyone with an ounce of decency in his position would do the right thing and immediately resign as an MSP.’
Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie said: ‘The people of Aberdeen Donside have already endured four months with an absent MSP after his self-imposed exile. This unprecedented sanction means they will go unrepresented in parliament once more. Mark McDonald ought to reflect on his position and resign.’
Mr McDonald was investigated by the Commissioner following a complaint by Nationalist MSP James Dornan, who accused him of a sinister campaign of ‘harassment and sexual innuendo’ against his staff member.
In his report, Mr Thomson said: ‘Sending the messages had the effect of creating an intimidating, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for witness A and involved sexual harassment.’
Mr McDonald said: ‘I have accepted the findings of the Commissioner’s report in relation to the two breaches of the code of conduct.’ He said he would accept any outcome from next week’s vote by MSPs and said any suspension would not affect his staff.
A spokesman for Nicola Sturgeon said that he ‘can’t see any circumstances’ where Miss Sturgeon would disagree with the Standards Committee’s recommendations.
‘Unwanted and disrespectful’ ‘Do the right thing and resign’