A former Labour councillor accused of blackmailing a Conservative MP in an alleged Westminster “honeytrap” scandal has appeared in court.
Ollie Steadman, 28, is accused of using “menaces” to demand the phone numbers of 12 people from William Wragg, in February and March last year.
He also faces five allegations of improper use of a public electronic communications network.
It is alleged he sent images “of an indecent character” to Mr Wragg, Ben Proctor, Ben Everitt, Ross Thomson and Luke Evans.
Mr Everitt was the Conservative MP for Milton Keynes North until the last election.
Mr Evans is the Conservative MP for Hinckley and Bosworth, having served in Parliament since 2019.
Ross Thomson was a Tory MP for Aberdeen South between 2017 and 2019.
At Southwark Crown Court on Monday, Steadman appeared in the dock for a hearing in front of Judge Alexander Milne KC.
The court heard a trial is expected to last up to three weeks, and will be overseen by a High Court judge.
Steadman, who quit as a Labour councillor in Islington after his initial arrest in June last year, first appeared in court at the start of November.
He has not yet entered pleas to any of the six charges.
Judge Milne released him on unconditional bail until a further hearing on February 10.
When Steadman, of Pemberton Gardens, Archway, resigned as a councillor, it forced a by-election in the Hillrise ward in Islington, which he had represented for just two months.
The “honeytrap” scandal saw British MPs and political figures reporting that they had received explicit images and flirtatious messages from anonymous WhatsApp accounts and phone numbers.
The then-Conservative MP William Wragg resigned the party whip after saying he was embroiled in the scandal.
Announcing the charges Malcolm McHaffie, Head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s Special Crime Division, said: “We have decided to prosecute Oliver Steadman with blackmail and five communications offences in relation to a total of five victims working within politics and Westminster.
“This follows an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service which looked into messages that included alleged unsolicited indecent images sent to a number of people within parliamentary political circles between October 2023 and April 2024 using WhatsApp.”
