A Conservative MP has been
suspended following allegations of
sexual assault and cocaine abuse.
David Warburton, the MP for
Somerton & Frome, is being inves-
tigated by parliamentary officials
after two women who worked in
his office submitted formal
complaints.
One reported that Warburton, a
56-year-old married father of two,
coerced her into returning to his
taxpayer-funded Westminster flat,
where he kissed, caressed and
groped her. She says he touched
her bottom and thigh on separate
occasions.
The second complainant said he
caressed her and physically barred
her from leaving the flat, pushing
her towards his bedroom instead.
A third woman, who does not
work in Westminster but met
Warburton through politics, said
he insisted on visiting her home
while she was drunk. She says he
asked her to order cocaine on his
behalf and snorted “line after line
after line”.
She became uncomfortable and
tried to make him leave but he
allegedly stripped naked, got into
her bed and groped her. He later
sent her texts, saying “promise I
won’t remove all my clothes again”
and that he hoped to procure
cocaine because he was on a “one-
line whip”, meaning he was not
required in parliament that day.
The Government Whips’ Office
secretary, he is working to reduce
the 51-page application form that
Ukrainians must fill in. It includes
questions such as: “Are you a war
criminal?”
Harrington said: “I want to get
this process down to a reasonable
amount of time. I am happy to say
publicly that my target is 48 hours
from when they download the
application form to when they are
given permission to travel.”
He also backs the idea of using
sanctioned oligarchs’ homes to
house refugees but claims that
he is focusing on the 200,
people in the UK who have offered
to put up refugees. “The govern-
ment is taking legal advice on
this,” he said.
Harrington, a remainer,
resigned from the government
over Brexit and had the Conserva-
tive whip withdrawn by Boris John-
son before standing down as an MP
in 2019. He was elevated to the
Lords last month specifically to do
this job.
He said the prime minister gave
him only two instructions before
taking up the role — that the refugee
scheme for Ukranians would be
Continued on page 2→Deep in the forest outside Kyiv,
where the mushroom-pickers used
to roam and rich city folk built
their palatial dachas, Maria
April 3, 2022 · Issue no 10,308 · thesundaytimes.co.uk £3 · only £2 to subscribers (based on 7 day Print Pack)
Sunday newspaper of the year
EAT YOUR
GREENS
VEGGIE
FEASTS
MAGAZINE
EASTER BREAKS
Dabizhe, 80, sat sifting through
discarded Russian ration packs.
The enemy soldiers had arrived
a few days into the war. “They
came to my house. I asked them
what they were doing there,” she
said, as artillery boomed in the dis-
tance. “They told me, ‘We’re just
trying to do our job’.”
At night, she saw their fires
burning. When they brought her
some food, she took it. Then, when
the soldiers started to withdraw afew days ago, fighting the
Ukrainians all the way, the true
horror of what they had done
became clear.
Her neighbours in a neat brick
house four doors down had been
tied hand and foot and killed.
Down the road, territorial defence
fighters said they had found a base-
ment where 18 bodies, men,
women and children as young
as 14 lay dead, their bodies muti-
lated.This is what the Russian forces
have left behind as they retreat,
destroying everything as they go.
Mines have been hidden in the
corpses that litter the streets.
Homes are left hollowed out and
burnt. Newly built dachas, their
gates torn open, are studded with
bullets from the firefights that
raged here between Ukrainian and
Russian forces a few days ago.
The soldiers and civilians in the
areas retaken by the Ukrainianarmy around Kyiv in the past few
days have endured weeks of fight-
ing, and the horrors of occupation,
to push out an enemy that most
predicted would destroy them
in days.
Dozens of towns, villages and
suburbs to the east, west and north
of Kyiv have been retaken by the
Ukrainian army, and the Russians
have retreated from the gates of
the capital to areas near the north-
ern border.Yet there is no celebration,
no joy.
The roads are mined, windows
broken, homes destroyed. In the
forest, the thick, soaring pines are
splintered at the trunk, gaping
open, white and yellow. It will take
months, perhaps years, until these
areas become habitable again. The
thousands of civilians who fled
these areas have been told, for
now, not to return.
“There’s nothing to be happyabout. Only sorrow for the people
who were killed,” said Sergeiy
Torovik, 53, a soldier with the terri-
torial defence force, who lives in an
area that was retaken a few days
earlier. “The Russian soldiers are
lower than animals. Animals don’t
do what they did. We shouldn’t
take them hostage. They must die.
They must be destroyed.”
Along with his son Yuri, Torovik
was standing at a checkpoint nearBodies of mutilated children among horrors the Russians left behind
LOUISE
CALLAGHAN
Zabuchchya, Ukraine
HAN
TRAVEL
Continued on page 4→David Warburton asked a woman to order cocaine and then snorted “line after line after line”, she saidRefugees won’t wait
longer than two days,
promises minister
The refugees minister has pledged
to process visas for those fleeing
Ukraine within 48 hours and bring
in 15,000 people a week following
criticism that those seeking safety
from the war in Britain have faced
long delays.
Lord Harrington of Watford said
he has set himself the ambitious
targets after he admitted that only
“hundreds” of refugees have
arrived in Britain under the Homes
for Ukraine scheme.
When the scheme was launched
on March 18, it was estimated that
the Home Office would be able to
process 10,000 visas in the first
week. The exact number of ref-
ugees who have arrived will be
published this week.
The former Conservative MP
said the process had been “far too
slow”. He added: “We did not have
and we’ve never had a proper sys-
tem of administering the mass flow
of people from abroad. The asylum
system, the Syrian refugee pro-
gramme, and everything else was
based on a much smaller volume of
people.”
Harrington, 64, who is the
grandson of Russian refugees who
fled a pogrom in the early 1900s,
has applied to become a sponsor
himself and has offered a flat in
London that he owns with his fian-
cée, the former Tory MP Jessica
Lee, to a Ukrainian family.
He said there are people “work-
ing overtime every evening and
seven days a week” to speed up the
process, but added: “It is not as
automated as it should be.”
He said the multiple checks
being carried out on refugees and
their UK sponsors, including those
on passports and the international
watchlist, were taking “far too
long”. With Priti Patel, the homesaid yesterday: “David Warburton
MP has had the Conservative Party
whip removed while the investiga-
tion is ongoing.”
Separately, Warburton bor-
rowed more than £100,000 as part
of an agreement with a contro-
versial Russian businessman in
2017 and did not disclose it in the
register of interests.
The reports of sexual harass-
ment will reignite discussion about
the safety of women in parliament,
five years after the MeToo scandal
hit Westminster. They come days
after Charlie Elphicke, the former
MP convicted of sex assault,
dropped his years-long claim
against The Sunday Times for
revealing that he had been accused
of rape.
The two former aides have
referred their allegations to the
Independent Complaints and
Grievance Scheme (ICGS), which
was set up in 2019 in response to
so-called Pestminster scandals.
One said she feared for others’
safety during what could have
been a secret investigation lasting
many months.
Neither complainant felt com-
fortable addressing Warburton’s
conduct internally because the
senior worker responsible for HR
matters is his wife, Harriet.
One complainant is on indefi-
nite sick leave. The other has
been moved to the office of a
female MP. Both are likely to
encounter Warburton, who has
served in the Commons sinceTory MP suspended after
sex and cocaine claims
Gabriel Pogrund
Whitehall Editor
‘MeToo’ watchdog investigates
two female aides’ allegations
Continued on page 2→Caroline Wheeler Political Editory(7HA9F6*LNSTRN( |||+#!@'INDEX
This week News 2
Weather News 27
Letters News 24
Sudoku News 26
TV & Radio Culture 29