Former Conservative minister Crispin Blunt has been fined £1,200 after admitting he possessed crystal meth, cannabis and GBL – having told of hosting chemsex parties while wanting to help inform government drugs policy.
The 65-year-old former justice minister appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday to admit four drugs charges, which stem from a raid on his home in Horley, Surrey, on October 25 2023.
Blunt was in possession of the chemical drug GBL, a sedative, as well as cannabis, methamphetamine and methylamphetamine – which is commonly known as crystal meth.
He has pleaded guilty to one count of possessing class A drugs and three charges of possession of class B drugs.
The drugs were found when Blunt, who represented Reigate in Parliament between 1997 and 2024, was being investigated on suspicion of rape.
After an 18-month investigation, Surrey Police announced in May last year that there would be no further action on the rape allegation due to insufficient evidence.
Blunt, wearing a charcoal-grey suit, white shirt, and purple tie, is representing himself in the criminal court proceedings.
Former Conservative minister Crispin Blunt has pleaded guilty to four charges of possession of drugs including cannabis and crystal meth
The 65-year-old ex-justice minister appeared before Westminster magistrates on Wednesday to admit the charges- he is pictured here in the House of Commons in October 2023
Blunt served in David Cameron’s government as parliamentary under-secretary of state for prisons and youth justice from 2010 to 2012, and went on to chair the Foreign Affairs Committee from 2015 until 2017.
He lost the Tory whip in October 2023 when he was first arrested by police and stood down from Parliament at the 2024 general election.
Prosecutor Zarah Dickinson told today’s hearing Blunt was ‘polite’ and ‘calm’ when his home was raided by police during an investigation into a rape allegation.
She said: ‘This arises from a police investigation into offences alleged to have occurred during a chemsex party at Mr Blunt’s home address in September 2023.
‘No charges were brought on those alleged offences.
‘As a result of them, police attended his home address on October 25 2023.’
He then ‘volunteered’ to officers that he had plastic syringes to take the crystal meth, as well as a ‘small bottle of clear liquid’ which he identified as GBL, a date rape drug.
Ms Dickinson outlined how crystal meth valued at £200 to £250 was on Blunt’s bedside table, plastic bottles of a crystal meth and amphetamine mix were recovered, and a syringe containing £200 of GBL was found in a laptop bag.
Officers also recovered a bag of cannabis valued at between £5 and £10, as well as weighing scales containing powder residue.
The court heard Blunt told police he entered the chemsex scene after being appointed as a justice minister in the Cameron government and claimed he used his experience of drugs parties to inform policy development.
Ms Dickinson, summarising his police interview, said: ‘It was the first time he had come out as a gay man and during his ministerial role he saw first hand the harm caused by the government’s drug policy.
‘He began to take a professional interest in a policy that inflicted lasting harm on society.
‘Then he began his involving in the chemsex scene. His knowledge of first hand use of drugs was used to inform how policies could be implemented.’
She said Blunt outlined hosting chemsex parties and said he would strictly limit GBL use to once an hour.
Representing himself, Blunt told Westminster Magistrates’ Court how a US-led policy of ‘global prohibition’ of drugs had been a ‘catastrophe’ and criticised his former party for failing to carry out drug reform.
He condemned what he called his former colleagues’ ‘moral simplicity’ of ‘drugs are bad’ without considering the ‘appalling consequences of that position’ because it ‘keeps politicians safe’.
Blunt said his work as a parliamentarian focused on reversing the ‘consequences of our policy’ in areas such as drug reform.
He added as a safe-seat Tory he had the privilege of holding beliefs that were ‘controversial, not least within my own party’, including on Palestine, LGBT rights and drug reform.
The former MP also recounted meeting a man at a ‘chemsex party’ who turned out to be a drug supplier later charged with attempted murder – saying the man concocted a ‘false account’ against him so he paid him £2,000.
District Judge Tan Ikram replied: ‘Sounds as though he was trying to blackmail you.’
Blunt is due to be sentenced later on Wednesday.
The politician came out as gay months after his government appointment in 2010 and separated from his wife of almost two decades, Victoria, with whom he had two teenage children – as said he was going to ‘come to terms with his homosexuality’.
He later became a vocal backbench supporter of gay rights, chairing the all-party parliamentary group on global LGBT+ affairs and revealing to the Commons in 2016 that he had used poppers.
Challenging a ban on the drug that had been proposed by the government, he said: ‘There are some times when something is proposed which becomes personal to you and you realise the government is about to do something fantastically stupid and I think in those circumstances one has a duty to speak up.’
‘I use poppers, I out myself as a popper user, and would be directly affected by this legislation.’
Before entering Parliament, Blunt was a graduate of the Sandhurst Military Academy and spent more than a decade as an officer in the British Army.
He was elected as MP for Reigate in East Surrey in May 1997, defeating the constituency’s previous Conservative MP Sir George Gardiner who had defected to the Referendum Party.
The local Reigate and Banstead Independent newspaper revealed during the campaign how Blunt had told his candidate selection committee interview even a donkey wearing a blue rosette could win in Reigate.
Sir George responded by parading a donkey he named Crispin along Reigate High Street.
Blunt was later criticised as Reigate MP after telling a Conservative Association event a joke comparing then-Labour health secretary Frank Dobson to serial killer Dr Harold Shipman – with relatives of Shipman victims among those speaking out.
