2 2GMS1 Monday April 4 2022 | the times
News
Labour ‘tried to gag female accusers’
Steven Swinford Political EditorLabour has been accused of betraying
its values after two former members of
staff who made complaints of sexual
harassment said they were asked to
sign confidentiality agreements.
Laura Murray, the party’s former
head of complaints, and Georgie
Robertson, a press officer, told the BBC
that they had raised concerns about the
behaviour of a senior official.
They reported the official for “in-
appropriate” and possessive behaviour
in March 2020. The man, who has not
been named, was temporarily suspend-
ed. He strongly denied the allegations.
Both women refused to sign the
agreements and left their roles without
payouts. Mark Stephens, their lawyer,
said the proposed contracts violatedguidance from the equality watchdog
and Labour’s own policy on non-
disclosure agreements.
Murray told the BBC of the man’s
alleged behaviour: “It was really, really
obsessive levels of communication.
And because I was more junior, I didn’t
really know how to protect myself.”
Robertson said that the man had put
pressure on her to go for drinks.
“After rebuffing his advances, he
then started to spread false rumours
that I was sleeping with a married man
at work,” she said.
The women resigned after refusing to
sign the contracts. “I refused to accept
that and to be silenced. It could encour-
age the party to use those agreements
in future with other women who’d been
harassed,” Robertson said.
Twelve women who are on Labour’snational women’s committee or its
national executive committee said in a
joint statement: “We are appalled to see
these reports about mistreatment and
sexual harassment of women working
for the party. We can’t fight to end
sexual harassment in society if we don’t
also address it within our party.
“Trying to persuade women to sign
non-disclosure agreements to cover up
abuse is a gross betrayal of Labour
values.”
A party spokesman said it took “com-
plaints of sexual harassment extremely
seriously... [They] are fully investigated
and any appropriate disciplinary action
is taken in line with the party’s rules and
procedures.” A Labour source said that
the party did not use non-disclosure
agreements that would stop anyone
speaking out about sexual harassment.gathering necessary evidence for
pursuit in international courts.”
Britain and the EU have heaped
sanctions on Russia but Brussels has
stopped short of an embargo on Rus-
sian oil and gas exports because some
member states, including Germany, rely
on them. Annalena Baerbock, the
German foreign minister, suggested
this may change. “Bucha must have an
impact on the fifth package of sanc-
tions,” she said. “And we will support
Ukraine even more in its defence.”
Christine Lambrecht, the German
defence minister, said the European
Union should talk about ending Rus-
sian gas imports.
EU ambassadors will discuss new
measures on Wednesday, with pressure
from the “sanctionistas” led by Poland
to restrict trade in metals and ban oil
imports from Russia. President Macron
of France added that Moscow must
“answer for these crimes”.
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of
state, said that Washington was working
with European allies on sanctions,
calling the images from Bucha “a punchNEWS
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PA G E 7© TIMES NEWSPAPERS LIMITED, 2022.
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e-mail [email protected]Some bright intervals but most
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THETIMES.CO.UK/SUBSCRIBESix killed in
US shooting
Six people were killed
and twelve injured in a
night-time shooting in
the city of Sacramento,
California. Police said
they were searching
for “multiple attackers”
and no arrests had
been made. Page 29Cadbury hit by
labour claims
Cadbury is facing
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been working on
cocoa farms in Ghana
that supply the
confectioner. Page 20
Nine-hour
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Ferry passengers at
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of up to nine hours
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poor conditions in the
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suspension of P&O
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COVER STORY, PULLOUTto the gut”. He added: “We can’t
normalise this. This is the reality of
what’s going on every single day as long
as Russia’s brutality against Ukraine
continues.”
Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said
Britain would support a war crimes
investigation by the International
Criminal Court. “As Russian troops are
forced into retreat, we are seeing
increasing evidence of appalling acts by
the invading forces in towns such as
Irpin and Bucha,” she said. “Their
indiscriminate attacks against innocent
civilians... must be investigated as war
crimes.”
Moscow denied responsibility,
claiming that the bodies on the streets
were part of a “staged performance” by
Kyiv “for the western media”. It called
for a debate at the UN security council
on the Ukrainian “provocation”.
Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to
President Zelensky, compared the
scenes on the outskirts of the capital to
a “horror movie”. Dmytro Kuleba, the
foreign minister, called it a deliberate
massacre and tweeted: “Russians aim
to eliminate as many Ukrainians as
they can. We must stop them and kickthem out. I demand new devastating
G7 sanctions NOW”. Kyiv’s defence
ministry called the killings a “new
Srebrenica”, referring to the killing of
more than 7,000 Bosnian Muslim boys
and men by Bosnian Serb forces in 1995.
New accounts of sexual violence by
Russian troops have emerged, includ-
ing an allegation that a woman, 29, was
“raped for a week” in the eastern city of
Kharkiv. Last week The Times reported
on the first investigation to be opened
into a gang rape by Russian soldiers of
a young mother whose husband was
shot dead before her assault as her four-
year-old child sobbed in the next room.
Melinda Simmons, Britain’s ambas-
sador to Ukraine, said on Saturday:
“Rape is a weapon of war. Though we
don’t yet know the full extent of its use
in #Ukraine it’s already clear it was part
of [Russia’s] arsenal.”
Ukraine’s government is compiling
evidence with the help of lawyers
including Amal Clooney and Lord
Neuberger of Abbotsbury, a former
judge in the UK Supreme Court.continued from page 1
Ukrainian civilians massacredWar in Ukraine, pages 6-
The scenes from Bucha leave the West
under no illusions, leading article, page 27The former deputy cabinet secretary
Helen MacNamara is among the first
people to be fined by police in connec-
tion with parties during lockdown, it
was reported last night.
MacNamara was in charge of White-
hall ethics, advising all government
departments on standards, when she
attended a leaving party for the former
No 10 aide Hannah Young while indoor
gatherings were banned.
Other Downing Street staff have
now been issued with fines over the
earlier party that took place the night
before the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral,
according to The Daily Telegraph.
MacNamara’s karaoke machine was
reportedly used at the party in the cabi-
net secretary’s office at 70 Whitehall.
Sources have described the party on
June 18, 2020, as “raucous”.
At the time, all indoor gatherings
were banned and people were being
advised not to sing in public.
MacNamara, who left the civil service
in January last year and is now the Pre-
mier League’s director of policy and cor-
porate affairs, reportedly received a £
fine on Friday after police concluded
that she had broken Covid laws. Her pre-
decessor in the Whitehall ethics role was
Sue Gray, who carried out an investi-
gation into parties for the government.Whitehall ethics chief fined
for lockdown ‘karaoke’ party
Charlie Moloney Meanwhile, Scotland Yard is said to
have told people who attended a No 10
party on April 16 last year, the day
before Philip’s funeral, that they would
be given fixed penalty notices.
It is the first sign that Covid laws may
have been broken inside No 10. Dozens
of aides and officials were at two parties
in Downing Street on the night before
the funeral service.
One party marked the departure ofBoris Johnson’s director of communi-
cations, James Slack, now deputy editor
of The Sun, and another was for one of
the prime minister’s photographers.
Slack has apologised for the “anger
and hurt” that the party had caused.
Aides and officials are said to have
been drunk at the events, which includ-
ed a trip to a supermarket by an official
with a suitcase to stock up on alcohol.
Many of those who attended have
been sent questionnaires by the police
asking them to provide a reasonable
excuse for being there. In an email seen
by The Guardian, the Operation Hill-man team investigating the parties told
some staff that it had been “assessed
that there are reasonable grounds to
believe that you committed an offence
in contravention of the regulations”.
The notification was said to have
been received by some people late last
week. It said: “In light of this, you are to
be reported for the issuance of a fixed
penalty notice (FPN), offering you the
opportunity of discharging any liability
to conviction for the offence by pay-
ment of a fixed penalty.”
Downing Street declined to com-
ment last night.
The Metropolitan Police said in a
statement: “Operation Hillman remains
ongoing, and as such we are not releas-
ing further information at this time.”
It is thought that Johnson will
not be interviewed by the Met as
part of the investigation, because it is
not interviewing those who have
received questionnaires as part of the
inquiries and could be fined, according
to ITV News.
The Met is investigating 12 events,
including as many as six that Johnson is
said to have attended, and has sent out
more than 100 questionnaires.
Robert Peston, of ITV, said that the
only officials being interviewed were
“witnesses”, whose role was to help
the police to interpret questionnaires
submitted by other people.Helen MacNamara
was said to have
received a fine
of £50 on FridayBanca do Antfer
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