Neil Parish
(Picture: PA)The wife of Tory MP Neil Parish, who resigned after watching porn in the house of Commons, said he “wasn’t waving it around” and it’s time the country “put it to bed” i ndefence of her husband.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Mr Parish’s wife, Sue said she hopes the British public can see past the scandal which forced him to resign as MP for Tiverton and Honiton.
Mr Parish admitted watching porn on his phone in the chamber twice, claiming to have first stumbled on the material while searching for tractors on the internet.
“What Neil did was wrong but, let’s say, the whole thing could have been handled better, particularly when you compare it to people who go out and grope people and do unseemly things,” his wife said.
“First of all, people shouldn’t be looking over other people’s shoulders when they’re looking at their mobiles. It’s quite hard to see the screen You have to really crane.
“Secondly, he was just in a little corner somewhere. He wasn’t in the middle of the chamber waving it around. There was no business going on. He was just waiting for votes. He hates to wait.”
His wife said a journalist called her to break the news of her husband’s actions.
“I was in shock. Why should you have any idea what your husband’s doing in his downtime? For goodness sake, you don’t spy on them, do you? Or, you shouldn’t,” she said.
“But I can’t get uppity about it. Perhaps I’m too easy-going, I don’t know. It would have bothered me if it had been sort of weird stuff, I suppose.”
Ms Parish said her husband had to “fall on his sword”.
The Conservatives’ 24,000 majority in the Devon seat was overturned by the Liberal Democrats after a by-election following Mr Parish’s resignation.
