Date:08/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/08/stories/2008090856571400.htm

International

Minister sorry for sex scandal

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: With his government already in deep crisis, the last thing Prime Minister Gordon Brown needed were lurid headlines about a sex scandal involving one of his Ministers.

So, there was much embarrassment in government circles on Sunday after Health Minister Ivan Lewis was forced to apologise for bombarding a young woman assistant with suggestive text messages and making “unwelcome” overtures.

Susie Mason (24), who was Assistant Private Secretary to Mr. Lewis, asked to be moved to another department because of his behaviour and later left the civil service altogether.

Behaviour

Media reports quoted Whitehall sources as saying the Minister’s behaviour went “well beyond acceptable office boundaries”.

“It wasn’t just one or two messages — there were dozens, and the content was over-familiar. This must have spooked her enormously,” one source told The Mail on Sunday.

The Department of Health confirmed that “a member of staff in the private office of Mr. Lewis informed her managers that she was unhappy with the nature of her working relationship with the Minister”.

“At her request she left the Minister’s office and was given another job in the department. She was a hard-working, extremely competent employee and we were sad to see her subsequently leave the department. The Minister in question apologises unreservedly,” it said.