Rising star Tory campaigner’s rape joke stunt

A TORY rising star on Rishi Sunak’s campaign for No10 was embroiled in a university rape joke scandal.

Connor Axiotes, 25, was this week seen celebrating with the new Prime Minister in Westminster.

But four years ago he was part of a group of students snapped in T-shirts scrawled with comments that ridiculed rape and child abuse.

His T-shirt bore the slogan: “I’ve got muscles cus dad raped me.” Other T-shirts had slogans including “f*** gay rights” and a Jimmy Savile joke.

Outcry over the Freshers Week stunt led to Lancaster University’s Snowsports Club being suspended.

A source said last night: “It’s shocking someone who took part in this has been able to work closely with the PM.”

At the time, fellow students said the event showed “a blatant lack of common decency”. The university investigated at the time and disciplined two students – but Mr Axiotes was not one of them. Organisers were fined and sent on a hate speech awareness course. There is no suggestion that Mr Axiotes, from Brough, Humberside, organised the event or wrote the slogans on his or anyone else’s shirt. Soon after the incident he commented “hahahahah” on a

Facebook post relating to the event. He uses the same page to share updates on his political career.

His LinkedIn profile says he is a parliamentary researcher and communications officer.

Last month he shared images of himself with an arm around Mr Sunak. Other pics show him dressed in Ready4Rishi clothing and next to a car loaded with campaign materials.

Last night Mr Axiotes denied any wrongdoing.

Number 10 declined to comment.