Ex-chancellor Osborne calls in police as email casts a shadow over wedding
Former chancellor George Osborne has called in police to investigate alleged online harassment after a poisonpen email was sent to guests attending his wedding.
Osborne, 52, married his one-time Treasury adviser Thea Rogers, 40, at a church ceremony in Somerset yesterday, but insiders say the nuptials were overshadowed by the incendiary letter, which was also sent to politicians and journalists on Thursday afternoon, and has since been posted online. Friends of the couple have described the email as part of a long-standing campaign of abuse aimed at the former Conservative MP, adding that, the while Osborne is understood to know the identity of the author, they have “no connection” to either him or his new wife.
It is understood civil proceedings have now been launched against the alleged author by Osborne’s lawyers, and he has also asked police to investigate the lengthy 2,500-word message, which makes a series of unsubstantiated claims about the couple’s private lives.
The email was originally sent to a more limited audience of friends and family about two months ago, according to reports, and its wider circulation last week left the couple “upset and distressed” ahead of their big day.
“The email is part of a long-standing campaign of harassment against them,” a friend of Osborne’s told The Telegraph newspaper late last week.
“The individual’s identity is known to them but has no connection to them. It has been an ongoing campaign for some time. It is hugely distressing, particularly at this time. It has caused great distress for some time and particularly given this is the weekend of the wedding. It is awful.”
Osborne and Rogers, who was the politician’s chief of staff and is now an executive at food delivery app Deliveroo, announced their engagement in April 2021, two years after the former Tory cabinet minister divorced his wife of 21 years, author Frances Osborne.
The pair welcomed their first child together, a son named Beau, in July the same year, while their second son, Arthur, was born in December 2022, joining Osborne’s two children, Luke and Liberty, from his first marriage.
The pair’s star-studded wedding took place at St Mary’s Church in the small town of Bruton, close to their £1.6 million family home. On leaving the church, the newly married couple were showered with orange confetti by a smartly dressed woman, who was initially believed to be a Just Stop Oil protester. The couple looked puzzled, but did not appear to speak to the woman, who was then spoken to by two men.
Osborne’s spokesperson said they did not think it was a protest and the individual did not say anything.