First Minister defends handling of allegations against Sargeant

FIRST Minister Carwyn Jones has defended the way he handled allegations of sexual misconduct against former Cabinet Secretary Carl Sargeant, who is believed to have taken his own life earlier this week.

But after paying tribute to his longstanding friend and colleague, who had not been given details of the accusations, the First Minister refused to take any questions, suggesting it was for a coroner’s inquest to investigate the circumstances of Mr Sargeant’s death.

Mr Sargeant died four days after he was told by Mr Jones that he should leave the Cabinet because of unspecified allegations that fell into the category of “unwanted attention, inappropriate touching or groping”. None of the allegations were made to the police.

Opposition parties have called for a full independent inquiry into the events which led to Mr Sargeant’s apparent suicide.

During a three-minute statement which he read at the podium in the Welsh Government’s media briefing room, Mr Jones said: “This is an awful situation for everyone. I want to talk about Carl and his family today.

“We’re all very shocked by what happened this week. There is great hurt, anger and bewilderment.

“Carl was my friend. In all the years that I knew him I never had a cross word with him. For 14 years we worked together. He was a great chief whip and a minister who served his country with distinction.

“I cannot conceive of what Bernie and the family must be going through.”

Mr Jones claimed there had been a lot of inaccuracies in press reporting and conceded that the journalists present had many questions to ask.

But he said: “Everybody is grieving and it is not appropriate for me to get into the precise detail. These are matters for the future – things that will need to be properly disclosed through what should be a coroner’s inquest.

“As there will in all probability be an inquest, I and my team will of course be cooperating fully with any questions that are raised there.

“The family deserve to have their questions answered and if