Scottish Daily Mail

Boozy attempts at seduction, and now a career in ruins

- Andrew Pierce reporting

Like so many gay men of a certain vintage, it was only af t er t he death of his mother that Nigel evans had the courage to come out. The loss of Betty evans five years ago was a shattering experience for the Tory MP.

But even the grief he suffered then must pale in comparison with the distress he has endured since the Crown Prosecutio­n Service decided to charge him with nine sex offences against seven men.

evans remained relaxed when a close friend tipped him off last May that a young man of 22 had made rape allegation­s against him to the police. He never thought for a second it would be taken seriously.

Today evans must know that, even though he’s been cleared by a jury, his reputation is in tatters.

The 56-year-old was portrayed in court as a sad, lonely, middle-aged man with a penchant for sex with men half his age.

His own assessment to his legal team was simply that ‘there’s no fool like an old fool’. While his Conservati­ve Associatio­n in Ribble Valley has been steadfastl­y loyal, some fellow Tory MPs fear he might not have the stomach to go on after the next election.

An intensely private man who hid his sexuality for decades, he has been humiliated by the graphic descriptio­ns of his clumsy and often drunken attempts at seduction inside his small constituen­cy cottage in Lancashire.

Though he was a popular choice to become the Deputy Speaker of the Commons four years ago, he had to resign from the job to clear his name. even if his successor eleanor Laing, another Tory MP, wanted to resign to give him his job back, it’s not in her gift to do so. it is a matter for the Commons.

He also faces potential financial ruin. The proceeds from the sale of the 80-year- old family greengroce­r’s business, which were supposed to support his retirement, have gone on legal fees.

Given his Welsh roots, it is perhaps surprising that evans became a rising star of the Tory Party. Born in Swansea, he went to the local state school.

As soon as his head could be seen above the counter, he began working in the greengroce­r’s establishe­d by his grandfathe­r in the 1930s. evans likens it to the shop in the sitcom Open All Hours.

As a teenager he knew he was gay but hid it, later stepping out with a girlfriend for the benefit of his God-fearing parents Albert and Betty.

At 17, he joined the Young Conservati­ves when Margaret Thatcher became Tory l eader. ‘ i always thought it was God’s little joke,’ he once said. ‘He made me born in Swansea and born a Tory.’ He also wryly commented: ‘it wasn’t so much “the only gay in the village” as “the only Tory in Swansea”.’

evans went on to study politics at the city’s university, but remained troubled by his sexuality, agonising over whether to tell his mother once his father died of cancer.

‘There was just no right time. i just did not want to upset her. i didn’t know how she would take it,’ he recalled.

Having fought and lost in two safe Labour seats in the 1980s, he was selected to fight a by-election in Ribble Valley in 1991.

even though he lost, the local Tories stayed true to him and he won the seat in the general election the following year.

WHeN he became an MP, he made a calculated decision to opt for a life of celibacy. He was ambitious and, in a Conservati­ve Party hostile to the gay community, he decided that pretending to be heterosexu­al was the best way to advance his career.

He even voted in favour of a series of measures which were seen to be anti-gay, such as opposing an equal age of consent.

But by 2000, the pressures of living a lie became unbearable and he started to ‘ consummate’ the gay phase of his life.

At the bar at Tory Party conference­s, or in the Sport & Social Club in the Commons, he often drank too much surrounded by young male researcher­s and was known to have wandering hands.

He often used to sit hand-in-hand on the Commons terrace with one of the men who gave evidence against him i n court. There was i nevitably gossip about the amount of time he spent with male r esearchers often half his age.

After the election of iain Duncan Smith as Tory leader in 2001, evans was made shadow Welsh Secretary. He contrived to be absent from the vote allowing civil partnershi­ps, missed three votes on gay adoption and in one vote opposed it.

in 2003, evans’s shadow Cabinet career ended with the election of Michael Howard as Tory leader. There was an insinuatio­n during the court case from the prosecutio­n that he was sacked because of his social conduct. it wasn’t true.

HOWARD was shrinking the size of the shadow Cabinet, and the Wales portfolio was reduced in stature. evans decided to return to the backbenche­s rather than carry on in a lesser role. in the years that followed, he became more settled in his sexuality. ironically, it was a man who had helped evans come to terms with being gay who, in 2009, told Tory whips that the MP had sexually assaulted him.

evans readily admits he had wrongly assumed there was a mutual sexual attraction, but flatly denies sexual assault, a claim the jury believed.

Speaking during the trial of the attraction he felt towards the young man, evans told the court: ‘ i have never c ome across somebody who was so open and positive about their sexuality. i was impressed.

‘We would sit very closely together. We would hold hands. My experience­s were somewhat more limited than his.’

After the allegation­s were made to the whips in 2009, no official action was taken, and a year later evans was elected Deputy Speaker by his fellow MPs.

By that point, his mother had died and, having stopped his late-night drinking sessions in Parliament, within months he had come out.

The three years that followed were some of the happiest of his life. But everything changed when further claims were made against him by a second man last year, and the Commons Speaker John Bercow called in the police.

 ??  ?? ‘11 months of hell’: Nigel Evans outside court yesterday
‘11 months of hell’: Nigel Evans outside court yesterday
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