Nadine Dorries continues to make waves in Westminster. One episode she references in her book concerns shocking claims that the Tory party ‘covered up’ incidents of sexual misconduct by one of its own MPs. Today’s Mail on Sunday reports that Sir Jake Berry, who served as chairman between September and October 2022, wrote to the police shortly after taking office.
His letter revealed that a number of allegations about the MP had been made to the party, but that only limited action had been taken. Berry reportedly uncovered the scandal when he discovered that the party had paid for one of the alleged victims to receive treatment at a private hospital. According to a letter obtained by the Mail, he warned that there ‘may be five victims’ of the MP in question ‘who have been subject to a range of offences including multiple rapes… the failure of others to act has enabled’ him ‘to continue to offend.’
The revelation has raised serious questions about how the Conservative party handles allegations of serious sexual assault. And answering those questions this morning was Oliver Dowden, now Deputy Prime Minister, but previously Tory chairman from September 2021 until June 2022, in which capacity he had responsibility for what happened at Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ). He told Sky News that:
Any allegation of sexual misconduct I take extremely seriously and the Conservative party has zero tolerance for sexual misconduct. We have an independent complaints mechanism and that investigates any allegations. The Mail on Sunday, as far as I can tell, doesn’t contain any details of the persons involved. So there’s a limit to what can say further than that, other than say it may be the case that these matters are subject to an ongoing criminal investigation. So to reassure you, we take any allegations exceptionally seriously.
Dowden used a similar form of words in his BBC interview with Laura Kuenssberg who asked if the story was true. The Deputy PM replied:
I simply can’t say because I don’t know who the individual concerned is. What I can I say to you is that when I was Chairman of the Conservative party, every allegation was taken very seriously and indeed was independent of me, because we had an independent complaints procedure. I think that’s the right way to address these things… I don’t recognise, in any form, the idea that we covered up and I can assure you, categorically, it was not the case that when I was chairman of the Conservative party I covered up any allegations. What I’m saying to you simply Laura, is that without knowing the name of the person, it’s very difficult for me to be able to give you further information in respect of an unnamed individual.
Given the gravity of Berry’s claims, don’t expect this one to go away any time soon.
