TWO VERY FEISTY WOMEN SPEAK OUT
A VETERAN journalist who once upbraided a Cabinet minister for repeatedly putting his hand on her knee last night warned that the Westminster sex harassment row had become a ‘witch hunt’.
Commentator and radio presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer said ‘wild rumours’ about MPs were circulating in Parliament but that in her experience genuine harassment was rare.
In the past she has written about how an MP repeatedly put his hand on her knee at a Conservative Party conference and propositioned her.
Yesterday the LBC host said she had been contacted by journalists about the incident in the wake of wider claims of sexual misconduct, but said she regarded it as ‘mildly amusing’.
Comparing her experience of a ‘misjudged sexual overture’ to serious harassment or assault was ‘absurd and wrong’, she argued.
In a statement released on Twitter yesterday she wrote: ‘Wild rumours and claims are circulating about many male MPs at Westminster in a media feeding frenzy.
‘I have worked in and around Westminster for 20 years and, as far as I am aware, incidents of genuine harassment involve only a small number of MPs from all parties.
‘I believe it is absurd and wrong to treat workplace banter and flirting – and even misjudged sexual overtures – between consenting adults as being morally equivalent to serious sexual harassment or assault.
‘It demeans genuine victims of real offences. Anyone with any allegations against an MP, or anyone else, should speak up now and provide the evidence to ensure any necessary action is taken.’ She added: ‘I have not been a victim and I do not wish to take part in what I believe has now become a Westminster witch hunt.’
Recalling the incident, she said the MP – now a Cabinet minister –‘repeatedly put his hand on my knee during a party conference dinner’.
‘I calmly and politely explained to him that, if he did it again, I would “punch him in the face”. He withdrew his hand and that was the end of the matter.
‘I have had no issues since with the man in question and do not regard the incident as anything but mildly amusing, which is why I have declined to name him.’
The commentator said she did not recall the same minister making a remark about her breasts, as has been claimed.
In a column for the Sunday Express in 2009 she described how the MP had propositioned her.
She wrote: ‘He was, he told me, a firm believer in the long-standing Westminster rule of … “party conferences don’t count”. I was, I told him, a firm believer in not going to bed with other women’s husbands.’
I told MP I’d punch him if he put his hand on my knee again – but it’s absurd to call what
assault’ he did Julia Hartley-Brewer, radio presenter