Damian Green was sacked because he 'lied', Jeremy Hunt says as he attacks police over porn leaks
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Loading... - Kate Taylor
- 21 Dec 2020
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Damian Green was sacked by Theresa May because he “lied”, Jeremy Hunt has said as he accused police officers who leaked details of a raid on the former First Secretary of State’s parliamentary office of actions that “don’t sit comfortably in a democracy”.
The Prime Minister called on Mr Green, a lifelong friend, to quit his role as the de facto deputy prime minister after he made "misleading" statements about allegations that police found pornography on computers in his office in 2008.
But Mr Hunt suggested Mr Green had been “pushed into a situation” where he said something he “didn’t mean to say”.
Mr Green’s departure from the frontbench has left a major hole at the heart of Mrs May’s Government with speculation now growing over who she could appoint as her replacement First Secretary of State.
Mr Hunt has already been tipped as a potential successor and he suggested he could be open to such a move, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Cabinet appointments “are a matter for the Prime Minister”.
A seven-week inquiry was launched into allegations made against Mr Green of inappropriate behaviour towards women and it found that he had misled the public in two statements he made last month denying the police had ever told him about pornography being found on a computer in a raid on his office in 2008.
In fact, the police had raised it with his solicitor in 2008 and with him directly in 2013.
Mr Green's demise has been framed as the result of a decade-long feud with former Metropolitan Police officers, who leaked details of the raid in recent weeks after the Cabinet Office started investigating him.
Mr Hunt said it was “clear” that Mr Green had been sacked by Mrs May and that “clearly he did something that was a breach of the ministerial code”.
The Health Secretary said Mr Green had “lied on a particular incident, yes” but that sometimes “people get pushed into a situation where they say something they didn’t mean to say”.
Mr Hunt then took aim at former police officers for the way in which they had conducted themselves in recent weeks.
He said: “I think if you look at what happened, some of the actions of particularly a retired police officer don’t sit comfortably in a democracy and Theresa May made very clear in her letter that she was very uncomfortable with what had happened and that she was pleased that Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, also felt that which is why an investigation is happening.
“So yes, there are various other things that I think we do need to get to the bottom of but nonetheless we are where we are and certain things happened and that is why the Prime Minister took the very difficult decision that she had to.”
Mrs May has criticised a former Metropolitan Police officer who spoke publicly about allegations of pornography found on Mr Green's computer.
In her letter to Mr Green the Prime Minister wrote that she shared "concerns" raised about the 2008 raid on his Parliamentary office.
She also criticised the intervention of the former senior officer - understood to be former assistant commissioner Bob Quick.
Meanwhile, at the end of November ex-detective Neil Lewis told the BBC he was shocked at the volume of pornographic material found on Mr Green's Commons computer and had "no doubt whatsoever" it had been amassed by the Tory MP.
