The Ukip MEP hospitalised after an altercation in the European Parliament was injured after he “fell over his own feet”, the other MEP involved in the altercation said.
Mike Hookem said Steven Woolfe “came at me” after having taken his jacket off and beckoned him outside a room they were having a meeting in.
He said the pair went outside expecting a fight but that in the end there was no pushing or punching involved in a “two or three second tussle”.
“Steven Woolfe came at me, it was a tussle, it lasted two or three seconds before other MEP colleagues came into the ante-room,” he told Channel 4 News.
“I’d backed off, the door opened, Steven Woolfe somehow fell over his own feet and fell into the room, and that was basically it.”
Asked for more details on how Mr Woolfe fell over Mr Hookem said “I have no idea”.
“More importantly I did not punch Steven Woolfe,” he added, also clarifying that “there was no violence” during the tussle.
Mr Hookem also explained that he left the same meeting early and immediately flew back to the UK from Strasbourg for reasons completely unrelated to the altercation.
“The day before one of my assistants was taken very ill, she was in hospital, I was told by the doctor that she had to be taken home and she had to be accompanied on the aircraft,” he told the channel.
“I had to change all of my travel plans, and I accompanied her, I had to go pick her up from the hospital. So I left that meeting early, at 10.30, to go pick this lady up, to take her back to her parents.
“I accompanied her back from the aircraft. At about 3 o’clock in the afternoon I got a text saying Steven had collapsed. That’s all I knew.”
Mr Woolfe is the favourite for next Ukip leader, Mr Hookem is the party’s defence spokesperson. They are both members of the European Parliament.
Mr Woolfe was rushed to hospital with suspected bleeding on the brain after he later collapsed but he is now apparently making a recovery.
