Police probe into Labour MP over ‘nightclub grope’

A LABOUR MP and staunch ally of Jeremy Corbyn was able to stand for re-election despite being investigated by police over an allegation of sexual assault.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the MP is being probed over an alleged incident in a city centre nightclub that took place months before the General Election.

It is understood the MP is alleged to have touched someone’s bottom while on the dancefloor.

But the MP, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has strongly denied the allegation against him as ‘wrong and false’.

This paper understands that the police inquiry began before the General Election.

Now Labour party bosses are facing demands to explain why this individual was allowed to stand for re-election as an official candidate when fellow Labour MP Stephen Hepburn was barred from doing so over a sexual harassment claim which he too denied.

Former Jarrow MP Mr Hepburn, who had represented the constituency since 1997, was removed as a candidate just over a week before nominations for the Election closed in November.

He had been accused of targeting a female party member in her 20s at a curry house in 2005 but has branded his treatment by Labour bosses as a ‘stitch-up’.

He has since been replaced as Jarrow MP by a Left-winger, Kate Osborne, who shared an image on social media which appeared to show Theresa May with a gun to her head.

However, party sources last night insisted that the two cases were different, privately claiming that the allegation against the unnamed

MP was ‘less serious’ than those faced by Mr Hepburn. They also suggested that as the complaint against the unnamed Corbyn ally had been made to the police, the party could not intervene.

Sources added that as Mr Hepburn had already been suspended from the party pending an inquiry, he ‘could not stand in the Election’.

The unnamed MP had not been suspended and so was able to stand as a Labour candidate.

A party source also sought to distance Mr Corbyn from the row by saying that party disciplinary processes were managed by Labour’s ‘governance and legal unit, not the leader’s office’.

In an official statement last night, a Labour spokesman said: ‘We take all complaints extremely seriously. They are investigated and any appropriate disciplinary action taken in line with the party’s rules and procedures.

‘We can’t comment on individual complaints.’

But last night, other MPs said the affair ‘reeked of double standards’ by Labour bosses.

One of them said: ‘We all understand the party has to tread very carefully whenever the police are involved.

‘But it does seem grossly unfair for one candidate to be blocked over sexual harassment claims he denied while another wasn’t.

‘The party is going to have to do some explaining over this.’

The police force involved last night confirmed it was ‘investigating an allegation of sexual touching which is reported to have taken place’ in July.

Mr Hepburn declined to comment when contacted except to say that as far as his treatment was concerned, ‘everyone knows it was a stitch-up’.

‘This reeks of double standards’