The prime minister initially resisted calls to suspend Mr Pincher, but bowed to pressure after the MP was reported to a parliamentary watchdog for sexual harassment. A Downing Street source said Johnson changed his mind after speaking to a Tory MP who witnessed the incident and was in contact with the alleged victim. “The account given was disturbing enough to make the prime minister feel more troubled than all this,” the source told the PA news agency. Mr Pincher resigned on Thursday night after the allegations came to light. He said he had had too much to drink and “embarrassed” himself at the Conservative Party members’ private club the night before. A separate claim emerged on Friday from a young Conservative activist who claimed he had been unwanted sexually harassed by Mr Pincher last year. The campaigner told The Times that the MP put his hand on his knee and told him he was “going far to party” at an event during the Conservative Party conference in Manchester. Pincher in Downing Street in February (PA) “It’s shocking he was anywhere near the whip’s office,” he was quoted as saying. Mr Pincher’s lawyers denied the allegation. A Tory MP who was present at the Carlton Club on Friday night told The Telegraph they “threw out” a “very drunk” Mr Pincher after they were made aware of a groping complaint. “I was alerted to the first situation and I took him out and told him to leave, because he was very drunk,” the deputy said. “I was told he was inappropriate with someone and apparently had put his hands under him.” Mr Pincher resigned saying he had ’embarrassed himself’ (PA) The prime minister accepted Mr Pincher’s resignation as deputy leader on Thursday, having approved his appointment in February despite earlier allegations of misconduct against the MP. Pincher previously stood down as whip in 2017 after being accused of misconduct by an Olympic swimmer and former Conservative candidate. He was cleared by an internal investigation and returned to government two months later. Downing Street admitted it was aware of the earlier claim against Mr Pincher but insisted the prime minister had no reason to block his appointment. Mr Pincher was moved from his role as housing minister to the whip’s office in the prime ministerial reshuffle in February. In January he took part in Operation Save Boris which was launched in response to the furor over the Partygate scandal, which broke the previous month. The former deputy chief whip was the fifth Tory MP to be forced to resign, stripped of the whip or ordered to stay away from parliament over sexual harassment allegations this year. Neil Parish, the former Tiverton and Honiton MP who resigned after admitting watching pornography in the House of Commons, complained about his treatment by the party compared to Mr Pincher. He suggested that Mr Pincher was protected by his proximity to the prime minister. Mr Pincher is being investigated by the Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme, a parliamentary body which looks into complaints of bullying, harassment or sexual harassment.
