A member of parliament for the ruling Conservative Party in the UK has been caught watching pornography in Parliament while the session was on.
The MP, identified as Neil Parish, a member for Tiverton and Honiton, a constituency in Devon, was caught watching porn by two female parliamentarians of his own party.
He has now been suspended from his party pending an investigation into his sexual misconduct.
On Friday afternoon, Parish referred himself to the Parliamentarian standards commissioner after senior Tory MPs expressed outrage at the party for failing to act on complaints made earlier this week despite being aware of his identity.
However, the 65-year-old MP maintained his innocence saying he may have accidentally opened a pornographic video in the House of Commons of the UK parliament.
He had offered to quit as an MP only when found guilty. But the BBC reports that the MP is expected to quit by end of today following immersing pressure from his fellow Tories and members of the opposition Labour Party.
“It’s expected he will confirm his resignation from Parliament in the next few hours. That will trigger a by-election in what is a safe Tory seat”, reports the BBC.
On Wednesday, it emerged that a female minister had reported a male colleague for viewing pornographic material while sitting beside her in the Commons chamber. The female minister said she had also seen the MP watching pornography during a hearing of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee that he was chairing.
A second female Tory MP said she had tried but been unable to capture video proof of him watching porn.
Parish is yet to quit.
