The Conservative MP Dan Poulter has won substantial libel damages from the Sunday Times after it published claims that he had sexually assaulted three female MPs.
The newspaper accepted there was no truth to its claims that the politician, who is also a practicing doctor, had put his hand up the skirts of colleagues.
The allegations were made in two Sunday Times articles published at the height of the #MeToo scandal in late 2017, during which several MPs were accused of inappropriate behaviour.
The articles were based on accusations made by Andrew Bridgen, a fellow Conservative MP, who alleged he had gone to the Tory whips office about Poulter in 2010 and that no action had been taken.
The articles prompted the Conservative party to launch an internal investigation into Poulter. It dismissed the accusations and said there was no reliable evidence to support the complaint since no female MPs had made any complaint about Poulter to the party, with the case instead relying on claims made by Bridgen.
Poulter, a former junior health minister who is now a backbencher, launched legal proceedings against the newspaper to clear his name.
The Sunday Times initially argued it had not claimed Poulter was guilty of sexual assault but was simply reporting the accusations against the Tory MP.
However, the high court later ruled that the stories implied Poulter was guilty of sexual assault, prompting the newspaper to settle and admit that the claims were false and should not have been published.
As part of the settlement the stories will be removed from the Sunday Times website. The newspaper has offered its “sincere and genuine apologies” to Poulter and acknowledged that the case caused him “considerable hurt, distress and embarrassment”.
Poulter, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich, said: “This has been a horrendous episode. These utterly unfounded allegations were published against me at a time of enormous frenzy about the supposed misconduct and wrongdoing of various MPs.
“Like many of the lurid claims made against numerous MPs at that time, they have been proved to be entirely without foundation – as I always knew them to be.”
