Tory MP sent sexual texts to woman who applied for job
A MARRIED former Cabinet minister sent a young woman sexually explicit messages after rejecting her application for a junior role in his parliamentary office, a Telegraph investigation can disclose.
Stephen Crabb, a devout Christian who stood for the Conservative leadership last year, admitted saying “some pretty outrageous things” to the woman after interviewing her for a job, and conceded that the messages “basically amount to unfaithfulness”. It is the second time Mr Crabb has been revealed to have sent explicit messages to a young woman while married. This weekend a friend of the woman reported seeing messages in which the father-of-two “said he wanted to have sex with her”. The friend accused the MP, who was a government whip at the time, of “abusing his position”.
Mr Crabb, 44, said that the pair later met on “several occasions” for drinks and that the messages were sent “from both sides” with the knowledge that “nothing like that was actually going to happen between us”.
The disclosure comes after a Telegraph investigation separately uncovered a series of allegations of MPs abusing or bullying staff, amid wider concerns about the treatment and
welfare of employees in Westminster.
There is no suggestion of similar allegations against Mr Crabb. However, the woman’s friend said his advances represented an “abuse of his position of power” as an MP who had been approached as a prospective employer. “It’s just absolutely awful and of course she never reported it,” the friend said.
Shortly after he withdrew from the Tory leadership race last summer it emerged that he had sent sexually charged messages to another woman during the run up to the EU referendum.
In one late-night exchange Mr Crabb, the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, told her he wanted to kiss her “everywhere” and asked her to call him, it was alleged last year.
The separate episode disclosed by the Telegraph today took place in 2013 after the woman concerned applied for a job in his office. The woman’s friend said: “He interviewed my friend, didn’t hire her then used her number to ‘sext’.”
While campaigning for the leadership of the Tories Mr Crabb presented himself a family man, emphasising his reputation as a candidate with strong “values” “valu and integrity and sound judgment. judg He has been married for 20 years to his university sweetheart, swee Beatrice, who works in his hi constituency office. This weekend we Mr Crabb admitted that “for anyone who is married ma or in a relationship, these type of message[s] messa with someone else basically amount to unfaithfulness unfa and are wrong wron and hurtful.”
He H said in a statement: “The “Th interview ... was conducted cond professionally and transparently, with other othe staff present, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply false.”