A Conservative councillor has waived his anonymity to tell how he was allegedly sexually assaulted twice by former deputy chief whip Chris Pincher.
Deputy mayor at Tamworth council, Daniel Cook, has said that the suspended MP groped him in 2005 and 2006 and that he regrets not coming forward earlier to stop Mr Pincher’s “predatory behaviour”.
Allegations emerged last week that Mr Pincher allegedly groped two men in a private members’ club. He apologised for his drunken behaviour on the night and resigned his position as deputy chief whip the following morning.
However, Mr Pincher has so far denied all sexual assault allegations made against him. Responding to Mr Cook’s allegations, his representatives told The Independent that “he did not conduct himself as alleged nor did Mr Cook ever raise any such issue with him”.
Mr Cook, a 6 ft 7 Yorkshireman, told The Independent he didn’t feel like a victim after a drunk Mr Pincher made a sexual pass at him because he is physically larger than the Tamworth MP. However when he heard other reports about Mr Pincher’s behaviour last week he realised that he had been subjected to similar abuse.
“If I’d not thought that way and behaved that way in 2006, would others have been spared?,” he said. “That’s my genuine guilt. It’s not what happened to me that I’m bothered about, it’s if I had seen it for what it was in 2006 rather than laughing it off because I could, would others have been spared?”
Mr Cook, a transport manager, claimed that on the first occasion of sexual assault in 2005 a drunk Mr Pincher and another colleague arrived at his home in Tamworth, Staffordshire.
“There was a knock on my door at 10pm on a Saturday night and they asked me if they could pop in and have a beer,” Mr Cook told Mail +. “Chris was very drunk and it gave me an uneasy feeling.
“My wife was out working and my kids were upstairs asleep and I let them in. The other colleague was elsewhere in the house when Chris cupped my genitals and asked if I had any good porn.
“I pushed him away and dismissed it as a drunken sexual pass. I just laughed it off as a joke at the time.”
He continued: “In 2006, it was the same sort of situation. The kids were upstairs in bed and Chris knocked on the door.
“He was incredibly drunk. He cupped my genitals and touched my bum.”
Mr Cook said Mr Pincher told him he was a “rising star in Tamworth Conservatives” and “should be leading everything”.
Mr Cook explained how he slammed Mr Pincher into the fridge, threw him against the kitchen wall and then grabbed him by his coat and violently threw him through the kitchen door.
“He staggered down my driveway because he was so drunk and left,” Mr Cook said.
He said that he didn’t do anything about the incident at the time because he thought Mr Pincher was “a lonely man” who wanted company.
“The other people he had done it to perhaps didn’t have my strength and size and were perhaps beholden to him or worked for a colleague of his,” he said. “I’m worried about how many people have potentially suffered, that’s why I wanted to come forward.”
