Married Tory MP ‘caught in just his underpants af ter night with lawyer’
A MARRIED Tory MP looked ‘ sheepish’ i n his underpants the morning after a one-night stand with a solicitor, a tribunal heard yesterday.
Huw Merriman allegedly spent the night with Patronia Campbell who felt ‘queasy’ afterwards when he declared his love and told her he was turned on by her legs.
The MP for Bexhill and Battle allegedly emerged from the bathroom in his pants and bumped into her landlord, Simon Carter, who told the tribunal: ‘It was very clear he could not wait to get past me quick enough and disappear.’
Mr Merriman, 42, elected last year, married Victoria, 41, in 2001. They have three daughters. There was no answer yesterday at the £1.6million family home in his East Sussex constituency.
The MP, a lawyer, denies having sex with 48-year- old Miss Campbell, who claims she asked him ‘why he felt the need to do this when he had a lovely wife and children’.
The pair worked together at NatWest and again for the liquidators of investment bank Lehman Brothers, which collapsed in 2008. She is suing Mr Merriman and Lehman Brothers for £250,000, claiming she was harassed, victimised and unfairly dismissed after having an affair with him.
She claims he bullied her for sex but ‘punished’ her when she rejected his advances, leading her to be signed off work feeling ‘like a zombie’.
The MP admits spending a night, in June 2011, in the two-bedroom house in Limehouse, East London, where £130,000-a-year lawyer Miss Campbell was a tenant, claiming he had missed his last train home and slept on the sofa.
Miss Campbell told East London Employment Tribunal that Mr Merriman had boasted of a string of affairs. She said: ‘He kissed me after dinner and we ended up in my bed and had sex. I woke up in his arms.
‘He asked me if I was OK and I said yes but that it would never happen again. He said he loved me, that he would no doubt become obsessed with me as he “knew what he was like”. He said he was turned on by me in the office, especially my legs. This remark made me feel queasy. I asked why he felt the need to do this when he had a lovely wife and children, by all accounts. He refused to answer and got agitated when pressed so I let it drop.’
Lawyers for Mr Merriman and Lehman Brothers claimed in a statement that Miss Campbell is ‘at worst a fantasist’. But her version was supported by her friend Mr Carter, owner of the £600,000 house where she was staying while her £ 820,000 apartment was renovated.
Mr Carter told the panel he was woken by noise at 3am and found Miss Campbell and Mr Merriman ‘very drunk’ cooking in his kitchen. He said: ‘They were making risotto and a lot of noise and a lot of mess. I think it was Huw cooking. I told them to stop.
‘There were lots of pots and pans everywhere. They were clearly very drunk. They weren’t taking much notice of me at all.’
Afterwards, he heard noises from the bedroom used by Miss Campbell, known as Patti to friends.
‘I could hear them talking and giggling. It’s safe to say I suspected they were not discussing the weather channel,’ said recruitment consultant Mr Carter. ‘ It was clear that Mr Merriman spent the night in Miss Campbell’s bedroom.’
Around 7.30am, Mr Carter said he went to his bathroom but had to wait about ten minutes to get in. He said: ‘Mr Merriman opened the door and sheepishly said good morning, before walking up the stairs to Patti’s room.
‘He is in his underpants, coming out of my bathroom first thing in the morning, in a stranger’s house – I would have been sheepish. It was very clear he could not wait to get past me quick enough and disappear.’
Mr Carter denied a suggestion by Mr Merriman’s lawyer he had ‘embellished’ his account.
Mr Carter added: ‘I have known Miss Campbell six years. It is very unlike her to have a casual fling. However, she had explained that she and Mr Merriman had a brief relationship some years back, that it was a mistake and it only happened because she was drunk.’
Miss Campbell has told the tribunal their previous relationship in the late 1990s was not sexual. But at Christmas in 2012 Mr Merriman allegedly declared he wanted to ‘marry’ her, she claimed.
He is accused of then subjecting her to unjustified criticism of her performance, engineering situations to allow others to criticise her, and also giving her unfair ratings in an annual review.
Miss Campbell was made redundant in 2014, which she claims was unfair.
The MP and Lehman Brothers deny any wr on g d o i n g . The hearing continues.
‘He kissed me after dinner’