The junior trade minister Mark Garnier has been formally cleared of wrongdoing for asking his former assistant to buy a sex toy and calling her “sugar tits”, with no action being taken against him, Downing Street has said.

Garnier did not deny the accusations about the events in 2010, made by his former assistant Caroline Edmondson, which prompted a one-month investigation by the Cabinet Office to see if he had breached the ministerial code.



Summarising the findings, a Downing Street spokesman said in a statement there was no evidence Garnier had done anything wrong since becoming a minister in July 2016.

The investigation also heard evidence “in relation to an incident that happened before Mr Garnier was a minister, between Mr Garnier and a member of his parliamentary and constituency staff”, the statement said.

“The Cabinet Office concluded that there was no dispute about the facts of the incident, but there was a significant difference of interpretation between the parties, and that the member of staff in Mr Garnier’s office was distressed by what had occurred.

“It was not his intention to cause distress, and Mr Garnier has apologised unreservedly to the individual. On that basis the prime minister considers that a line should be drawn under the issue.”

According to a report in the Mail on Sunday in October, Garnier gave Edmondson money to buy a sex toy for his wife and another for a woman working in his Wyre Forest constituency office.

Edmondson said: “He suggested to me in a Commons bar one evening that we went shopping for sex toys in Soho. The next day, he said: ‘Come on, let’s do it.’ He took me to Soho and gave me the money to buy two vibrators. He stood outside the shop while I did.”

Garnier, a former City fund manager, is married with three children and was elected as MP for Wyre Forest in 2010.

Garnier also admitted he referred to Edmondson as “sugar tits”, saying this was a reference to the BBC comedy Gavin and Stacey. He added: “It absolutely does not constitute harassment.”