Sacked Damian Green slammed for 'dirty tricks' over leaked messages from woman who accused him of misconduct

The pair stepped in for Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn as they were both absent
PA
Chloe Chaplain24 December 2017
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The row over Damian Green's sacking erupted again after his allies were accused of "dirty tricks" over leaked text messages between him and the woman who accused him of inappropriate behaviour.

Kate Maltby, who is 30 years younger than Mr Green, claimed he "fleetingly" touched her knee during a meeting in a pub in 2015, and a year later sent her a "suggestive" text message after she was pictured wearing a corset in a newspaper.

But according to messages leaked to the media, Ms Maltby continued to contact the former First Secretary of State after the alleged corset incident, and after she claimed she alerted a Downing Street aide to Mr Green's behaviour.

However, Tory former minister Anna Soubry accused Mr Green and his supporters of "launching an attack", and Ms Maltby told the Sunday Times "only Damian Green or his allies" could have leaked the texts.

'Attack': Journalist Kate Maltby accused Mr Green of sexual misconduct
Elizabeth Handy

And the newspaper suggested that the messages could have been edited to suggest Ms Maltby was pressing Mr Green to meet without his encouragement.

The original allegations, which Mr Green says he does not recognise, triggered a Cabinet Office probe into his conduct.

Reporting the probe's findings, Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood said that with "competing and contradictory accounts of what were private meetings" it was "not possible to reach a definitive conclusion on the appropriateness of Mr Green's behaviour with Kate Maltby in early 2015, though the investigation found Ms Maltby's account to be plausible".

The Cabinet probe led to Theresa May sacking her de facto deputy after he made "misleading" statements about subsequent and separate allegations that police found pornography on computers in his parliamentary office in 2008.

Text messages seen by the Mail on Sunday suggest Ms Maltby sent texts to Mr Green this year, which appeared friendly in tone and included one in February which said "hope to catch up when things calm down".

Mr Green reportedly replied: "They never do so let's fix a date soon", to which Ms Maltby is said to have replied: "Great. Night night."

But Ms Soubry accused Mr Green's allies of attacking Ms Maltby.

The MP told the Sunday Times: "It appears that Green's allies barely paused for breath after he apologised for the distress caused to Kate Maltby before launching an attack.

"It smacks of a dirty ticks campaign and is unhelpful to the Government when it is still dealing with the fallout of the Westminster scandal."

Mr Green reportedly denies any involvement with the leaked texts, while the Prime Minister said on Friday that the first she knew about allegations of inappropriate conduct by her close ally was when she read about them in the press.

Commenting on the leaked texts journalist Ms Maltby told the Mail on Sunday: "It has never been a secret that I had a friendly relationship with Damian Green for some time before I cut off contact, and that I resumed contact with him by text after he joined the cabinet.

"I felt it was professionally necessary - and I gave the cabinet inquiry multiple saved communications proving that I had asked the advice of several more experienced female journalists before doing so.

“For technical reasons, some text messages which have been passed to you could only have been released by Damian Green. They are not accurate and have been edited to represent Green in a favourable light.

“It is my clear understanding from the Cabinet Office that direct evidence as to his behaviour in this regard has already formed the background to the Prime Minister’s decision to sack him. Your story reflects much more on him than it does on me.”

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