The woman whose allegations of sexual misconduct sparked the probe leading to Damian Green’s sacking is considering legal action over the publication of “inaccurate” texts between her and the former Cabinet minister.
Kate Maltby said she has been “forced to consider all recourse” after the Mail on Sunday published text messages between her and Green.
The paper said they were sent after the Conservative MP had allegedly acted inappropriately towards Maltby, who is 30 years his junior, and suggest friendly relations between the two.
In a series of Tweets posted on Sunday, Maltby said that “for technical reasons” some of the texts could “only have been released by Damian Green” and they have been “crudely edited” to suit the former first secretary of state.
Green reportedly denies any involvement in the leaking of the messages.
Maltby sparked a Cabinet Office inquiry into Green when she claimed that he touched her inappropriately during a meeting in a pub in 2015.
She said a year later he had sent her a “suggestive” text message after she was pictured wearing a corset in a newspaper.
Her claims sparked an investigation into Green’s professional conduct, which found he had made “misleading” statements about subsequent and separate allegations that police found pornography on computers in his parliamentary office in 2008. On Thursday, Green was sacked by May. Texts seen by the Mail on Sunday suggested Maltby sent messages to Green this year, which appeared friendly in tone and included one in February which said “hope to catch up when things calm down”.
Green reportedly replied: “they never do so let’s fix a date soon”, to which Maltby is said to have replied: “Great. Night night.”
Maltby alleged the original messages passed to the newspaper had left out Green’s invitation to “fix a date”, and that this was only included after she was asked to respond to the story before publication.