An MP has been charged with two counts of sexual assault that allegedly took place at London’s Groucho Club, the Metropolitan Police have said.

Central Suffolk and North Ipswich MP Patrick Spencer is accused of two attacks on two separate women in August 2023 – before he was elected.

The 37-year-old will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 16 June.

Mr Spencer’s lawyers say he “categorically denies the charges” against him and “will defend the allegations robustly in court”.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had authorised charges relating to “two alleged incidents involving two separate women” at the private members’ club.

“On 13 March 2025, a man attended a voluntary interview at a London police station,” the Met Police said.

“Patrick Spencer has since been charged with two counts of sexual assault and will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday, 16 June.”

‘Evidence review’

Frank Ferguson, head of the special crime and counter terrorism division at the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), said: “Following a review of the evidence provided by the Metropolitan Police Service, we have authorised two counts of sexual assault against Patrick Spencer MP.

“The charges follow two alleged incidents involving two separate women at the Groucho Club in central London in August 2023.”

The Groucho is a private members’ club in Soho’s Dean Street. It opened in 1985 and became a well-known haunt of celebrities and media figures.

On his website, Spencer says he lives in Suffolk with his family.

He was not an MP at the time of the alleged attacks, having been elected to Parliament for the Conservatives in July 2024.

A Conservative Party spokesman confirmed that Spencer had been suspended. He is currently listed as an independent on the UK Parliament website.

The spokesman said in a statement that the Conservative party “believes in integrity and high standards”.

“We have taken immediate action,” he added.

“Patrick Spencer MP has been suspended from the Conservative Party, and the whip withdrawn, with immediate effect.

“The Conservative Party cannot comment further on an ongoing legal case.”

It is understood that Spencer was asked not to attend the parliamentary estate by the Tories’ chief whip while police carried out their investigation.

MPs face being barred from attending Parliament if they are arrested for serious sexual or violent offences after changes last year.

A risk assessment panel appointed by Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle considers cases.

It can decide on a range of measures including exclusion from the parliamentary estate and a ban on Commons-funded travel, although its conclusions are kept confidential.

‘Moral probity’

Spencer was elected as the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich in July 2024 with a majority of 4,290.

Before he entered the Commons, he worked in finance for the private equity firm IPGL, a company chaired by his father, former Conservative Party treasurer Lord Michael Spencer.

He later took a job at the Centre for Social Justice think tank and then became a senior adviser at the Department for Education.

Spencer made his maiden speech in July during a debate on the MPs’ code of conduct relating to second jobs.

He said then that the “most important thing to the people across my constituency” was “restoring a sense of moral probity and public spiritedness to our political system”.

Taken From BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0lnggjj9gko

A top general who failed to report evidence of alleged SAS war crimes in Afghanistan later oversaw the rejection of hundreds of UK resettlement applications from Afghan commandos who served with the elite regiment, BBC Panorama can reveal.

Gen Sir Gwyn Jenkins led UK Special Forces (UKSF) in Afghanistan at a time when alleged war crimes were committed. He later appointed a UKSF officer under his command, who had also served in Afghanistan, to assess the Afghan commando applications after special forces headquarters was given a controversial veto over them.

Thousands of applications from individuals with credible evidence of service with Afghan Special Forces, including the units known as the Triples, were then rejected, leaving many of the former commandos at the mercy of the Taliban.

The rejections are controversial because they came at a time when a judge-led public inquiry in the UK had begun investigating the SAS for alleged war crimes on operations on which the Triples were present.

If the Afghan commandos were in the UK, they could be called as witnesses – but the inquiry has no power to compel testimony from foreign nationals who are overseas.

Some of those denied visas were subsequently tortured and killed by the Taliban, according to former colleagues, family members and lawyers.

According to internal emails and testimony from within the Ministry of Defence (MoD), obtained by Panorama, the UK Special Forces officer appointed by Gen Jenkins stood over civil service caseworkers from the resettlement scheme and instructed them to reject the Triples applications, one after another, on what sources described as spurious grounds.

A senior government source close to the process told the BBC that the UK Special Forces officer “would never have acted without direction”, adding that “everything would have gone through Gwyn Jenkins”.

At the time, in 2021-22, Gen Jenkins was the head of all UK Special Forces. He is now the chief strategic adviser to the Defence Secretary John Healey and is tipped to take over as First Sea Lord – the head of the Royal Navy.

Gen Jenkins was made aware of allegations that the SAS was committing extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan, but he failed to report the allegations to military police – Panorama has previously revealed – despite a legal obligation to do so. The suspected unlawful killings continued.

Panorama has now heard eyewitness testimony from veterans who served in UK Special Forces detailing alleged war crimes stretching over more than a decade and involving the SBS as well as the SAS.

Gen Jenkins did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment on this story. The MoD responded on his behalf. It said in a statement that there is no evidence it has tried to prevent former Afghan troops giving evidence to the Inquiry and that “anyone can provide evidence… no matter where in the world they are”.

The MoD added that it was “fully committed to delivering on our pledge to relocate and resettle eligible Afghans and their families to the UK”.

“Each resettlement application is decided on its own merits against the criteria outlined in the ARAP [Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy] and immigration rules,” the statement said.

The rejections of the Triples applications left caseworkers from the ARAP scheme questioning the validity of the process, given that many of the applications contained compelling evidence of service alongside British special forces.

One applicant was rejected even though they had submitted photos of themselves serving alongside Gen Jenkins.

Hundreds of rejections have since been overturned following a government review.

A letter obtained by Panorama shows that concerns were raised among cabinet ministers in January 2024 over the existence of the UK Special Forces’ veto over the Triples applications.

The then Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer wrote to senior Conservatives to say the role of UKSF in denying the applications was “deeply inappropriate” and “a significant conflict of interest, that should be obvious to all”.

He had been compelled to write, he added, because he had been shown evidence “that 5 members of these units have been killed having been rejected for resettlement”.

Mr Mercer, who served alongside the SBS in Afghanistan before becoming an MP, went on to warn that the role of UKSF in the process had a “very high chance of being exposed by the Afghan Inquiry”, which could “lead to serious questions of all those Ministers involved in the process”.

The Triples units – so-called because their designations were CF 333 and ATF 444 – were set up, trained, and paid by UK Special Forces and supported the SAS and SBS on operations targeting Taliban leaders in Afghanistan.

When the country fell to the Taliban in 2021, they were judged to be in grave danger of reprisal and were entitled to apply for resettlement to the UK.

But, according to MoD documents obtained by Panorama, thousands of ARAP applications containing credible evidence of service alongside UK Special Forces were subsequently rejected.

BBC Panorama first revealed last year that it had been UK Special Forces – the very force that trained and served with the Triples – that rejected them.

“We heard some of our Triples were already killed by the Taliban,” said Jumakhan Joya, a former Afghan special forces commanding officer. “Some of them are in jail in a Taliban prison. Some of them have already been disabled by the Taliban. They’re breaking their hands, their legs, their head,” he said.

Mr Joya told the BBC he believed that the existence of the public inquiry was the “only reason” their applications had been vetoed.

The rejections and reported reprisals have outraged some former members of British special forces. “What’s happened is horrendous. It is a betrayal and it shames us all,” one former UK Special Forces officer told Panorama.

Asked by Panorama about the government’s rejection of Triples’ applications, Bruce Houlder KC, who as a former director of service prosecutions was responsible for bringing charges against members of the armed forces, said the government must have known the Triples would have “highly relevant” evidence that would be “much easier to obtain” if they were in the UK.

“I can’t think of any fair reason why we should exclude people from their right to live in this country, which is extended to others, simply because they might be in possession of information which would embarrass special forces,” Mr Houlder said.

“If that is the reason, it’s disreputable and it can’t be supported in any way.”

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Ex-UK Special Forces break silence on ‘war crimes’ by colleagues

The home secretary has said plans for new checks on unauthorised working will help cut levels of illegal migration.

Yvette Cooper has announced plans to expand the range of companies that can be fined for not carrying out right-to-work checks on casual workers.

Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, she said criminal gangs were using the prospect of illegal work to lure people into trying to enter the country.

It comes ahead of a UK-hosted summit on Monday, to be attended by about 40 nations, on tackling organised immigration crime.

Conservative shadow minister Alex Burghart said his party would study the proposals, but Labour needed to do more to deter people from coming to the UK.

Companies have a legal responsibility to verify that people they employ directly have the right to work in the UK. For agency workers, the responsibility lies with the agency to conduct the relevant checks.

There are sanctions including fines of up to £60,000 per unauthorised worker in cases where foreign workers are found to be working illegally.

Under plans announced on Sunday, the requirement to conduct a test would be extended to self-employed contractors carrying out work on behalf of a company.

Currently, firms are responsible for conducting checks on such workers only if they have sponsored the visa allowing them to work in the UK.

Cooper told the BBC that checks were currently “not reaching” the so-called gig economy, where many workers are employed in temporary or casual roles.

“Criminal gangs promise people illegal work just as they then take their money for illegal crossings as well,” she added.

Asked how many illegal workers would be stopped under the new measures, she conceded it was “difficult” to provide a precise figure.

“What we need is for employers themselves to take action that prevents the illegal working in the first place,” she added.

“Some of this is about us increasing enforcement, but some of this is the prevention action that we need employers to take.”

‘Wrong end’

The Home Office said the change would be made possible by amending the government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, which is making its way through Parliament.

The department said a “full consultation” with businesses on implementing the checks would then follow, naming construction, food delivery, beauty salons, and couriers among sectors likely to be affected by the new rules.

Elsewhere in her interview, Cooper confirmed the government is reviewing how international human rights law is applied to migration cases, although she did not provide details.

The government has faced pressure from the Conservatives, who have called for a law change to stop those denied the right to stay in the UK challenging their deportation on human rights grounds.

Shadow cabinet office minister Burghart accused Labour ministers of looking at the “wrong end of the problem” when it came to illegal working.

He said Labour’s decision to scrap the Tories’ Rwanda deportation scheme shortly after entering office meant there would be no “deterrent” to stop people trying to enter the UK without permission.

The Conservatives announced the plan in 2022, but failed to bring the scheme into effect before they were voted out of office at last year’s general election.

Taken From BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy7xqwqxxxo