Patrick Grady was found to have made an unwanted sexual advance towards a junior male member of staff, who was 19 at the time

An SNP MP is set to be suspended from the House of Commons for two days for sexual misconduct.

Patrick Grady, MP for Glasgow North, was found to have made an unwanted sexual advance towards a junior male member of staff, who was 19 at the time.

This included the MP touching and stroking his neck, hair and back.

Mr Grady stood down from his role as SNP chief whip in March last year following sexual harassment allegations.

His two-day suspension from the Commons was today recommended by a parliamentary panel.

It found the 42-year-old guilty of a ‘significant breach’ of Parliament’s sexual misconduct policy.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has previously admitted she was aware of ‘a concern’ about Mr Grady before a harassment complaint was made against him.

The MP was told the recommended suspension was ‘short’ due his ‘genuine remorse’, and because the staff member leaked stories about to the media in an ‘attempt to publicly discredit’ Mr Grady.

Patrick Grady was found to have made an unwanted sexual advance towards a junior male member of staff, who was 19 at the time

Patrick Grady was found to have made an unwanted sexual advance towards a junior male member of staff, who was 19 at the time

The MP for Glasgow North is now facing a two-day suspension from the House of Commons

The MP for Glasgow North is now facing a two-day suspension from the House of Commons

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has previously admitted she was aware of 'a concern' about Mr Grady before a harassment complaint was made against him

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon has previously admitted she was aware of ‘a concern’ about Mr Grady before a harassment complaint was made against him

Following the findings against him, Mr Grady has also been ordered by the Independent Expert Panel (IEP) to make a public apology in the Commons and a private one to the complainant.

It said: ‘An unwanted physical touching, with sexual intent, from a senior MP to a junior member of staff, even on a single occasion, is a significant breach of the policy.’

The incident occurred at an SNP event in a pub in 2016, when Mr Grady was ‘under the influence of alcohol’.

The panel noted how the staff member had remained at the event when all other MPs had left.

The IEP report stated: ‘Mr Grady, under the influence of alcohol, made a sexual advance to the complainant in the mistaken belief that this advance would be welcomed.

‘The advance included the touching and stroking of the complainant’s neck, hair, and back.

‘The respondent states that when it became apparent that his conduct was not welcome, he desisted.’

The complainant is a member of SNP staff at Westminster.

They made nine allegations against Mr Grady; three of sexual misconduct and a further six of bullying and harassment covering the period from 2016 to 2020.

Only one allegation of sexual misconduct was upheld by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Stone, following an investigation by an independent investigator.

Ms Stone found the complainant had made a ‘deliberate attempt to publicly discredit Mr Grady’ by leaking stories about his complaints to the media, in a breach of confidentiality rules.

The IEP rejected an appeal by the complainant against the Commissioner’s decision not to uphold one of his bullying and harassment allegations, which had been made during the investigation.

The panel noted that although sexual relationships between MPs and their staff are not banned, they added: ‘It is obvious that enormous care must be taken if such relationships are to be entered into. Great disparities of status and power exist.

‘Where a considerable disparity of age and experience is added into the mix, it will be highly problematic to initiate a sexual relationship without the risk that there is no true mutuality.’

They added that a ‘second critical factor’ was Mr Grady’s attempt to initiate a relationship by physical contact.

There was ‘no intimate touching, but this was nevertheless clearly sexual in intent and manner, and clearly inappropriate’, the panel found.

The report added: ‘This factor was exacerbated by the fact that the context was public, and drink had been taken.’

Mr Grady, who was first elected to Parliament in 2015, was found not to have persisted with, or repeated, his approach once rebuffed.

The panel also stated he ‘accepted the facts when confronted with them in 2018, and made a genuine apology’.

The report added: ‘Mr Grady subsequently underwent training to address his lack of insight into the power dynamics between MPs and staff.

‘And in his submissions to the sub-panel made clear both that he had learned from the experience, and his continuing genuine remorse for his actions and their impact on the complainant.’ 

The panel concluded that, for the reasons set out in the report, Mr Grady’s recommended Commons suspension ‘should be short and will be somewhat shorter than it might have been by reference to the breaches of confidentiality by the complainant’. 

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