Tory MP Neil Parish has quit after admitting to watching porn in the House of Commons in a ‘moment of madness’.
The member of parliament for Tiverton & Honiton was identified yesterday as the mystery politician allegedly seen watching adult content twice by two female colleagues during a meeting.
He had initially vowed to continue his duties in his constituency after he was suspended from the parliamentary Conservative Party over the claims.
The 65-year-old suggested he had opened the material by mistake but said he would quit if found guilty by parliament’s investigation into the matter.
Now, he has confirmed that he is going to resign and he is ‘not proud’ of what he has done.
He said the first time he viewed the x-rated content was accidental after looking at tractors, but the second time was deliberate.
In an interview with BBC South West, he said: ‘The situation was that – funnily enough it was tractors I was looking at.
‘I did get into another website that had a very similar name and I watched it for a bit which I shouldn’t have done. But my crime – biggest crime – is that on another occasion I went in a second time.’
Asked if that was deliberate he said: ‘That was deliberate… that was sitting waiting to vote on the side of the chamber.’
He added: ‘What I did was absolutely wrong.’
Mr Parish appeared emotional as he said he was standing down after seeing the damage the scandal was causing his family, his constituency and local association.
It is understood he agreed to resign after allies told him his position had become untenable.
‘I was wrong, I was stupid, I lost sense of mind,’ he said.
However, he denied watching the material in a way where he hoped other people would see it.
‘I make a full apology. A total full apology. It was not my intention to intimidate.’ he said.
‘I mean I have 12 years in Parliament and probably got one of the best reputations ever – or did have.’
When pressed on why he chose to view the material in the Commons, he said: ‘I don’t know, I think I must’ve taken complete leave of my senses and my sensibilities and my sense of decency, everything.’
He said he was ‘not defending what I did for one moment,’ arguing he thought the best thing he could do was to ‘tell the truth’.
Mr Parish faced calls to resign immediately after being identified yesterday.
Last night, he said he had looked at something ‘in error’, but said he would not comment further.
He later said he had made ‘a complete mistake, and I will man up to it as they say’.
And he said his wife had ‘married a f****** idiot’.
In an interview with The Times yesterday, Mr Parish’s wife Sue said the allegation was ‘very embarrassing’ but vowed to stand by him.
She said her husband of 40 years was ‘quite a normal guy’ and ‘a lovely person’.
‘If you were mad with every man who looked at pornography, you would not have many wives in the world,’ she said.
However, she called pornography ‘demeaning and degrading’ to women and said she understood why the female colleagues who made the allegation were upset.
Allegations of a porn-watching MP were first aired in a meeting with Chief Whip Chris Heaton-Harris on Tuesday.
Mr Parish did not come forward as the culprit, even when asked about the claims in a televised interview, until when the revelations were about to be made public on Friday.
The Conservatives then suspended the whip from him, meaning he was out of the parliamentary party.
He referred himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone, and said he would continue with his ‘duties’ in the Commons pending the outcome of an investigation.