Tory MP Sarah Wollaston frustrated that Nigel Evans sex allegations could not be investigated by Speaker
Conservative MP Dr Sarah Wollaston was frustrated that sexual assault and rape allegations made against MP Nigel Evans could not be investigated by Speaker John Bercow, a court has heard.
Dr Wollaston, MP for Totnes in Devon, gave evidence at Preston Crown Court on Monday in the trial of the former Commons deputy speaker.
Dr Wollaston revealed she had made an appointment with Speaker John Bercow in April last year after a parliamentary aide told her that Mr Evans had allegedly assaulted him.
The court heard that Mr Bercow took advice and was told it was not a matter he could investigate.
Dr Wollaston said she then received a phone call from the Metropolitan Police about the allegations.
The MP said she did not feel it was her place to report the matter but took the officer’s contact details and gave them to the alleged victims.
Dr Wollaston told the jury she first became aware of the allegations in March of last year.
Sky News reports the MP said she was in the Strangers’ Bar in the House of Commons with a group of people when the unnamed aide “alluded to having been assaulted by an MP”.
She told the court: “I felt it wasn’t the right setting to have a conversation.”
But she added: “I didn’t want to cut him off or make light of it.”
Dr Wollaston told the court the man said he had been a guest at a party Mr Evans’ home in 2009.
It was claimed the victim had woken in the night to find Mr Evans’ hand down his boxer shorts.
“He said he was very angry, very upset by it. He pushed Evans away violently,” Dr Wollaston said in her testimony.
A 22-year-old student also claimed to Dr Wollaston that he had been raped by Mr Evans in 2009.
She said: “He told me that Evans had had pushed him into his room.
“He then told me that he woke in the night to find Evans on top of him.
“He told me that he had just been frozen. I asked him if it would have been clear whether he was consenting. He said it would have been clear he was not consenting.”
Mr Evans denies one rape, two indecent assaults and six sexual assaults.
The trial continues.
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