So what did the investigation into Damian Green's conduct focus on?published at 20:58 Greenwich Mean Time 20 December 2017
The Cabinet Office investigation focused on two main issues:first, allegations by Kate Maltby, who said in an article published in The Times on 1 November that Damian Green had made an unwanted advance towards her during a social meeting in 2015, had suggested that this might further her career, and later had sent her an inappropriate text message.
Thesecondrelates to public statements made by Mr Green following a report in The Sunday Times on 5 November that during a 2008 police investigation into leaks of official information, which resulted in Mr Green's arrest, pornographic material was found on Mr Green's parliamentary computer.
Mr Green publicly refuted in strong terms both Ms Maltby's claims and the Sunday Times report. The investigation also sought to establish whether, during Mr Green's time as a minister, there had been any suggestion of inappropriate behaviour on Mr Green's part.
The investigation concluded:
- that Mr Green's conduct as a minister has generally been both professional and proper
- that with competing and contradictory accounts of what were private meetings, it is 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
- that Mr Green's statements of 4 and 11 November, which suggested that he was not aware that indecent material was found on parliamentary computers in his office, were inaccurate and misleading, as the Metropolitan Police Service had previously informed him of the existence of this material. These statements therefore fall short of the honesty requirement of the Seven Principles of Public Life and constitute breaches of the Ministerial Code. Mr Green accepts this.