Elected to parliament in 2010 after a career in engineering and banking, Andrew Griffiths spent eight years as Conservative MP for Burton in Staffordshire before his career imploded in a sexting scandal.
He was a junior minister in July 2018 when the Sunday Mirror reported he had bombarded two constituents with explicit messages. He sent them more than 2,000 texts, often referring to himself as Daddy. He boasted he was busy “running the country” but wanted to be “licking naughty girls” and offered them hundreds of pounds for sex.
Griffiths was married then, with a child, and presented himself as a champion of women. He helped to found Women2Win, the organisation dedicated to electing more female Conservative MPs, and campaigned for upskirting to be outlawed.
But in his private life he behaved quite differently, messaging the women to say: “I want to be able to lift your skirts over dinner and show my friends.”
He quit as small business minister almost immediately, a post he had held for just seven months, saying he was “deeply shamed” and would be seeking help. But he said he would fight for his career and reputation.
He apologised for embarrassing Theresa May, then prime minister. He was close to May, having been her chief of staff when she was in the shadow cabinet in 2004, and used to have a picture of the two of them as his Twitter avatar.
Days later the Guardian revealed Griffiths was already under investigation for allegations of inappropriate touching and bullying.
A few months on, he gave an interview to the Sunday Times in which he said the sexting occurred when he was having a manic episode linked to being sexually abused as a child.
He also talked of thinking of killing himself, stopping only when thinking of the effect on his wife and daughter and when the chief whip contacted parliament’s doctor and got him into hospital.
His wife, Kate Griffiths (nee Kniveton), left him almost immediately, refusing to pose for photographs to the press to suggest she was standing by him. It was the third time he had betrayed her since they got together in 2008, she told the family court. He’d had a long affair with someone while he lived in London, which Kate only discovered when the other woman appeared at Conservative party conference. He was also caught sexting a different woman in 2011, the court heard.
Despite resigning as a minister, he remained an MP until the snap general election in 2019. He stood for re-election but so did Kate, who ultimately won the selection battle and retained the seat with a majority of 14,496.
An employee at Burton Albion football club, she was a surprising candidate, with no background in politics. She had led a sheltered life before meeting Griffiths in 2006, living with her parents until her late 30s when they got together. Their relationship began as an affair conducted in hotel rooms – he was living with someone else at the time.
After her election to the Commons, she pledged to be an advocate for domestic abuse survivors but kept her own abuse private.
That all changed on Friday when an appeal court judge ruled that a “fact finding judgment” into the couple’s relationship could be made public.
Kate gave her blessing for the document to be made public, which included harrowing evidence of rape and coercion she had given to Derby family court when Griffiths applied to spend time with his child.
“I supported publication of the Family Court’s findings – and waived my right to anonymity – because I recognise the unique position I am in to campaign to improve the outcomes of cases such as this, for those who endure domestic violence, and the actions taken to protect the children involved,” she said on Friday.
In her maiden speech, she described her constituents as hard-working, resilient people. “Throughout our history, we have suffered and overcome adversity,” she said. She could have been speaking about herself.
