Tory MP Peter Bone hit and abused staff member, watchdog says

The Conservative MP Peter Bone repeatedly hit and verbally abused a member of his staff, often asked him for massages and on one occasion put his bare genitals in the other man’s face, according to a report by a Commons regulator.

Bone, one of the most prominent members of the campaign for Britain to leave the EU, was found by the independent expert panel to have bullied and harassed his staff member over a three-month period in late 2012.

The non-political panel recommended Bone be suspended from the Commons for six weeks, enough to trigger a recall petition if upheld by the whole house, and potentially another difficult byelection for the Tories.

The panel’s report, published on Monday, found Bone had “verbally belittled, ridiculed, abused and humiliated” the unnamed employee. It said the veteran MP “repeatedly physically struck and threw things” at him.

Bone issued a statement after the publication, saying: “None of the misconduct allegations against me ever took place. They are false and untrue claims.”

However, the panel’s members dismissed Bone’s appeal during its investigation, saying his denials that the events ever took place jarred with the detailed notes taken by the complainant and Bone’s own admission that he could not remember “minute details” of them.

Bone is the latest in a series of high-profile Conservative MPs to be laid low by misconduct scandals.

They include the former government whip Chris Pincher, who was suspended for eight weeks after being found to have drunkenly groped two men at a private members’ club last year. Pincher has resigned as an MP and the byelection to replace him takes place on Thursday.

Dominic Raab resigned as deputy prime minister and justice secretary after an independent inquiry found he had abused his power by intimidating and undermining staff. Raab has said he will stand down as an MP at the next election.

For years, Bone has been a figurehead of the Eurosceptic right of the Tory party, as well as a prominent member of the Cornerstone group of socially conservative Tory MPs.

For the last 10 years, however, and without public knowledge, he has been under investigation by various organisations over a set of accusations made by a former staff member after they quit their job in his office in 2013.

The unnamed employee alleges that from September 2012 to January 2013, Bone engaged in a number of bullying and humiliating employment practices.

These included frequently shouting at him and calling him “thick”. The report found that Bone repeatedly struck his staff member on the back, shoulders and back of the head, saying at one point he had done so “because you’re having a thick day and I thought that would help”.

The complainant, who kept contemporaneous notes of most of the incidents, said that on at least six occasions Bone demanded a neck and shoulder massage with nobody else in the office and the door closed.

Then, on a work trip to Madrid, Bone booked a twin room for the pair, and complained when the employee tried to separate the beds. Bone then summoned the complainant into the bathroom to fix a broken shower, and as the staff member did so, Bone dropped his towel and exposed his genitals close to his employee’s face.

The panel found that this action constituted sexual misconduct, and dismissed Bone’s claims that it didn’t happen, finding the complainant’s detailed testimony believable.

The report also detailed how the member of staff had first made a complaint to the Conservative party in November 2017, but it remained unresolved by August 2022, when he decided to withdraw that complaint and pursue action via parliament’s independent complaints and grievance scheme.

A spokesperson for the party said: “This case was investigated by [Conservative Central Headquarters], however the complainant withdrew from the process before the case was heard.”

If MPs uphold the sanction of six weeks, Bone will face an automatic recall petition. If 10% of voters on Bone’s constituency of Wellingborough sign the petition, Bone will be recalled and a byelection will be held, at which he will be allowed to stand again.

In 2019, Bone won a 19,000 majority over Labour, enough in normal times to classify his seat as a safe Tory constituency. However, Labour recently overturned an even bigger majority in Selby & Ainsty and is hoping to repeat the feat twice this week in byelections in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire.