Cabinet Office rejects calls from Daisy Goodwin to investigate alleged Daniel Korski groping incident in No10

Daniel Korski (Nigel Howard)

The Cabinet Office has rejected calls from a TV producer to investigate an alleged groping incident at Downing Street a decade ago.

Daisy Goodwin had accused Dan Korski of touching her breast at the end of a meeting at No10 in 2013 – prompting his withdrawal from the race to become the Tory mayoral candidate.

She made a formal complaint this week after a writing newspaper article naming Mr Korski, who was David Cameron’s deputy policy chief at the time.

He described the allegation as “false and unproven” but said it had made it impossible for him to continue with his bid to be mayor.

Ms Goodwin, whose book Victoria has been dramatised for TV, said she had been told by a senior Government official that she had two options – to refer the matter to police if she believed a crime had been committed, or to do nothing, as Mr Korski no longer worked in Government.

“There isn’t a body that deals with special advisers and MPs despite serious allegations,” she told The Times.

A Cabinet Office spokeswoman said: “The Cabinet Office has been approached by an individual in relation to this matter and they have been directed to the relevant authorities for such allegations.”

On Thursday Rohan Silva, the Evening Standard columnist and former Downing St aide to Mr Cameron, wrote about how he met Ms Goodwin at a party in 2015 – when she recounted details of her meeting with Mr Korski two years earlier.

“Daisy proceeded to tell me in great detail about how Korski had fondled her breast under the steely gaze of Margaret Thatcher, whose portrait hung in the room,” he wrote in The Times.

Caroline Nokes, the chairwoman of the Commons equality committee, said she believed Ms Goodwin’s version of events.

She told the Today programme: “There have been all sorts of questions raised as to whether she’s telling the truth, whether she misremembered what happened. Women do not make mistakes when they know a man has touched their breast.

“Women are expected to get on with the rough and tumble of politics or get out. We need to have a zero tolerance approach to inappropriate behaviour by men in politics towards women.”

Tory chairman Greg Hands said the party’s mayoral contest would continue with the two remaining candidates, London Assembly member Susan Hall and criminal barrister Moz Hossain KC.

On Friday, Justine Greening, the former Tory education secretary, said in a Talk TV interview with Nadine Dorries that she had no interest in seeking to become the party’s mayoral candidate. The winner is due to be announced on July 19.