Tory MP to make formal complaint to IPSO over Sunday Mirror Twitter sting
Conservative MP Mark Pritchard has announced on Twitter that he is to make a formal complaint to UK newspaper regulator IPSO over alleged entrapment after he was approached by a journalist posing as a ‘Twentysomething Tory PR girl’ interested in sex.
The move follows a front page story in yesterday’s paper which led to the sudden resignation of Brooks Newmark, the former Minister for Civil Society, which claimed the MP had sent an explicit image of himself in his pyjamas to the account.
In his message Pritchard, who was also approached by the Mirror journalist, wrote: “Test case for IPSO Will be making formal complaint over attempted entrapment by Mirror. Appears even single MPs can't have a ‘private life’”.
Other MP's to be approached include: Charlie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover and Deal, Mark Pritchard, Tory MP for The Wrekin in Shropshire, and Jesse Norman, MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire - although no impropriety is suggested.
Legal experts suspect that the Mirror may be guilty of ‘entrapment’ by employing a freelance male journalist to pose as a pretty blonde for the Twitter sting.
Lloyd Embley, editor of the Mirror and Sunday Mirror, defended his paper’s actions however, asseting in another tweet that: “‘1) it wasn’t a Mirror sting 2) there’s a nailed-on public interest.”