Detectives investigating allegations of drug offences against Lord Sewel, the former House of Lords deputy speaker, after a newspaper exposé have closed the case saying there is insufficient evidence to proceed.
Sewel resigned from the Lords in July and apologised for the “pain and embarrassment” caused after the Sun on Sunday published a film and images showing him allegedly taking cocaine with sex workers.
Scotland Yard launched an investigation into alleged drug offences later that month, with detectives searching his flat in Dolphin Square in Westminster.
But on Tuesday, the Metropolitan police said Sewel would not face charges after the investigation found “insufficient evidence”.
A Met statement said: “Following a review of all the material, including a forensic examination of an address in central London, there is insufficient evidence to proceed with this investigation and the matter is now closed.”
Sewel initially resisted calls for him to resign but succumbed to pressure after the police announced their investigation.
The Sun on Sunday published a video allegedly showing him using a £5 note to snort a white powder off a table, and its sister daily paper followed up the article with further excerpts from recordings allegedly showing him drinking after having taken drugs with sex workers. Sewel is seen wearing women’s underwear in some of the images.
He is heard branding David Cameron “the most facile, superficial prime minister there’s ever been”, the Sun reported, during a conversation captured on camera at his flat.
He reportedly calls Boris Johnson “a joke” and a “public school upper-class twit” and describes Scottish MP Alex Salmond as a “silly, pompous prat”.
The newspaper also reported that Sewel said the Labour leadership race was “in a fucking mess”.
In the videos, Sewel, who has been a peer since 1996, was asked whether he received expenses. He explains that he gets a flat-rate allowance of £200 a day, though he alludes to the system being less rewarding than it once was.
“It’s all changed and disappeared. People were making false claims,” he is heard as saying. “Members of her lordship’s house … are right thieves, rogues and bastards at times. Wonderful people that they are.”
