UK lawmaker admits passing colleagues’ numbers to stranger met on dating app

William Wragg, 36, a lawmaker for PM Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party since 2015, had felt compromised after he sent the online stranger intimate photos of himself

This was reportedly a wider operation targeting people working in the UK parliament, with 12 men including a serving government minister known to have been targeted

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Conservative MP William Wragg, chair of Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, speaks at a hearing of the committee in London in 2022. Wragg had handed over the phone numbers of colleagues to a man he met on a dating app, part of what is reported to be a wider operation targeting people working in the British parliament. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:53pm, 5 Apr 2024

A senior member of Britain’s governing Conservative Party has admitted supplying the personal details of fellow lawmakers to someone he met online, saying he had felt compromised after he sent them intimate photos of himself.

William Wragg told the Times newspaper he had handed over the phone numbers of colleagues to a man he met on a dating app, part of what is reported to be a wider operation targeting people working in the British parliament.

The Times said those colleagues were then sent unsolicited flirtatious messages, and two lawmakers had responded by sending explicit photographs of themselves.

“They had compromising things on me,” Wragg, 36, told the newspaper. “They wouldn’t leave me alone. They would ask for people. I gave them some numbers, not all of them. I told him to stop. He’s manipulated me and now I’ve hurt other people.”

News outlet Politico said 12 men including a serving government minister were known to have been targeted in the suspected operation, receiving flirtatious messages and pictures from people who called themselves Abi or Charlie.

Neither the Times nor Politico said who was believed to be responsible for the messaging campaign.