Former Tory minister Peter Bone has been kicked out the parliamentary party after a report found he committed acts of bullying and sexual misconduct.
Mr Bone has lost the Conservative whip – meaning he will have to sit as an independent MP.
A spokesperson for Chief Whip Simon Hart said: “Following a report by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP), the Chief Whip has removed the Conservative whip from Peter Bone MP.”
On Monday, a report by parliament’s IEP found that Mr Bone “trapped” a member of staff in a room where he exposed himself – in what the panel said was a “deliberate and conscious abuse of power”.
Mr Bone, the MP for Wellingborough, “committed many varied acts of bullying and one act of sexual misconduct” against the staff member in 2012 and 2013, the panel said.
It recommended that he be suspended from the House of Commons for six weeks – paving the way for another potential by-election and headache for Rishi Sunak.
Mr Bone said the allegations are “false and untrue” and “without foundation” as he vowed to continue representing his constituents.
Five allegations by a Westminster staffer were made in October 2021 after a complaint made to then prime minister Theresa May in 2017 went unresolved, the IEP said.
The complaints included four allegations of bullying, detailing that Mr Bone “verbally belittled, ridiculed, abused and humiliated” his employee and “repeatedly physically struck and threw things” at him.
The report said Mr Bone also imposed an “unwanted and humiliating ritual” on him by forcing him to sit with his hands in his lap when he was unhappy with his work, and that he ostracised his staff member following an incident on a work trip to Madrid.
The complainant also alleged that Mr Bone had “repeatedly pressurised” the member of staff to give him a massage in the office and, on a visit to Madrid with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Human Trafficking, indecently exposed himself to the complainant in the bathroom and bedroom of the hotel room they were sharing.
In its findings, the IEP said: “This is a serious case of misconduct. The bullying involved violence, shouting and swearing, mocking, belittling and humiliating behaviour, and ostracism.
“This wilful pattern of bullying also included an unwanted incident of sexual misconduct, when the complainant was trapped in a room with the respondent in a hotel in Madrid. This was a deliberate and conscious abuse of power using a sexual mechanism: indecent exposure.”