Green ‘suffering’ as inquiry drags on

DAMIAN GREEN’S allies have said that he is under “enormous strain” over allegations of misconduct and it would be “intolerable” for the inquiry to drag on until after Christmas.

Mr Green, the First Secretary of State and the Prime Minister’s effective deputy, is being investigated by the Cabinet Office over claims he had pornography on his computer and he behaved inappropriately towards a female Tory activist.

Allies of Mr Green are increasingly concerned that the investigation, which they say should be “straightforward”, will now drag into the New Year. A friend of Mr Green said: “It has put an enormous strain on him and his family, it would be awful for it to still be hanging over him over Christmas.

“It’s been an incredibly difficult period for him. Every time he sits next to the Prime Minister on the front bench he has people taking potshots and saying he shouldn’t be there. He should be treated as innocent until proven guilty.

“We’re hoping that the findings of the report will be published next week, but who knows.”

It is possible Mr Green will be cleared of wrongdoing in the Whitehall inquiry because none of his alleged actions occurred while he was a minister.

Sue Gray, the director general of propriety and ethics at the Cabinet Office, has been seeking to establish whether any of Mr Green’s alleged behaviour happened when he was in government.

Ms Gray only has powers to rule if

‘It has put an enormous strain on him. It would be awful for it to be hanging over him over Christmas’

there has been a breach of the ministerial code. Both the incidents Mr Green is being investigated over happened when he was not in Government.

Mr Green was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions by Theresa May when she became Prime Minister in July 2016, and she made him First Secretary of State in June. He has faced repeated calls to stand aside while he is being investigated.

A former Met Police chief alleged the material was discovered on Mr Green’s computer during an inquiry into government leaks in 2008.

The claim was denied by Mr Green, who said he was the victim of an “unscrupulous character assassination”.

Mr Green is also facing allegations of inappropriate behaviour from Kate Maltby, a female Tory activist three decades younger than him.

She claimed that Mr Green had “fleetingly” touched her knee during a meeting in a Waterloo pub in 2015 and a year later sent her a “suggestive” text message after she was pictured wearing a corset in a newspaper.

Mr Green said any allegation that he made sexual advances to Ms Maltby was “untrue [and] deeply hurtful”.

Ms Maltby, 31, said that 61-year-old Mr Green was a friend of her parents who she had approached for advice.

She said they met and he suggested he could help her start a political career, before turning the conversation to the subject of affairs at Westminster.

Ms Maltby said that he mentioned that his wife was “very understanding” and she then “felt a fleeting hand against my knee”. She claimed she had no further contact with Mr Green until his text a year later saying he had “admired you in a corset”.