Neil Parish, the Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton, has formally resigned after having been reported for watching pornography on his phone in the House of Commons.
Parish admitted to watching explicit content on his phone twice while in the chamber.
Parish's misconduct first became known during a meeting of Conservative MPs on April 26, when an unnamed female minister reported that a male Tory MP had watched explicit content on his phone while sat next to her in the chamber. This account was corroborated by another MP present at the meeting who had witnessed the incident.
The incident made media headlines, but the identity of the offending MP remained unknown until Parish came forward and confessed publicly.
Parish claimed that the first incident of watching explicit content in the chamber was accidental, having clicked an external link while looking at a tractor website.
However, the second incident during which he had been seen, he confessed as being deliberate.
Describing the decision as a “moment of madness”, Parish said that he had been “wrong”, “stupid” and had “lost sense of mind.”
He has now formally submitted his resignation, which has been accepted by the Treasury.
Invoking the mechanism of appointing Parish to the position in order to enable him to resign from office, the Treasury said in a statement: “The Chancellor of the Exchequer has this day appointed Neil Quentin Gordon Parish to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.”
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
