I was MP who blew whistle on scam

IT’S not every day you find yourself in the national spotlight for doing the right thing, but I was the MP that blew the whistle on the Westminster “honeytrap” situation, alerting both the police and Parliamentary authorities to the issue. Since doing so, other people who received similar messages have come forward and the case continues to grow.

I didn’t expect to be writing to you about this, but in this month’s column I will explain what happened a little further...

In March I reported two incidents of cyber-flashing and malicious communications to the police.

I was approached by two different numbers on WhatsApp who purported to know me. The first messages came through when I was with my wife, the second came through 10 days later when I was in the office with my team.

On both occasions, after I tried to verify who was messaging me, I was sent unsolicited sexually explicit images. I immediately blocked the numbers and reported the contents to police and Parliamentary security.

I was able to screenshot the written messages and, as the second incident occurred, my team made a record of the explicit images which meant we could share this information directly with the police.

I had no idea who had sent the messages or why they were targeting me. Was it really someone I had crossed paths with in Westminster? A journalist trying to create a story? Another MP trying to catch me out? Or a state actor trying to blackmail me? As I am Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary, this was an added consideration. I had no idea, but all of the above are concerning so I reported the messages right away.

There is an ongoing police investigation into the matter so I wanted to keep it private – knowing, as well, how things can be misrepresented in the press and by political opponents – but when journalists found out that Leicestershire Police were investigating this following a report made by a Leicestershire MP, they soon discovered I was the one who had received the messages and reported them to our local police.

I have always promised to keep people across Hinckley and Bosworth updated and to be clear and honest, so instead of giving a quote to reporters, I decided to record a video which explained the situation, so that you could hear directly from me rather than simply reading a few sentences in the news.

Since I posted the video on my social media, I have been blown away by the amount of people from our area and across the country who have seen my video and come forward to share that they have also experienced similar incidents of phishing scams, flashing and blackmail attempts.

Most importantly, Charlie and I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to reach out to us since this happened and share kind messages. It’s greatly appreciated. I also want to thank Leicestershire Police for their ongoing support.

This story continues to move on and develop and, as you may imagine, I have more questions than answers. But I’ve been as open and transparent about the situation as I can given there is an ongoing police investigation. If you have any questions or concerns, please do reach out (my email is luke.evans.mp@parliament.uk) and I will be happy to answer them as best I can.