Simon Danczuk made £500 claim for consultant after allegations emerged that he sent explicit texts to teenager

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The Labour MP Simon Danczuk made a £500 expenses claim for a “crisis management” consultant after he was embroiled in allegations of sending sexually explicit text messages to a teenage girl.



Danczuk, who has been the Labour MP for Rochdale since 2010, was suspended by his party following allegations that emerged in the Sun newspaper that he exchanged sexually explicit text messages with 17-year-old Sophena Houlihan.

Danczuk employed a consultant for two days to manage a “crisis” over the Christmas period and then sent a bill to the taxpayer claiming it as an expense.

The invoice for the services of the unknown consultant states the fee is for “parliamentary media relations work over [the] Christmas period. Two days’ work. Crisis management and handling a high volume of media inquiries.”

The bill does not state what the “crisis” was. It is dated 3 January 2016 – three days after Danczuk was suspended by the party following allegations he exchanged sexually explicit text messages with Houlihan when she contacted him looking for a job as a case worker in his constituency office.

A copy of the invoice was released under freedom of information law by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa).

It has been alleged that Danczuk told Houlihan that he was “horny” and asked her if she wanted “spanking”. Houlihan told the Sun: “When I first got in touch I never expected the messages to get so graphic. At the time I played along with it, but now I feel like he duped me. I was keen for a career in politics and he is a very high-profile MP and I was in awe of him.”

Greater Manchester police confirmed that they had looked into a report that Danczuk had been “communicating inappropriately with a teenage girl” after a complaint was made to them on 29 December 2015. “This matter was looked into and it has been determined that no offences have been committed,” they said in a statement.

The MP, who was suspended by his party on New Year’s Eve, said his behaviour had been inappropriate and stupid, and apologised to anyone he had let down, adding: “There’s no fool like an old fool.”

Speaking in April he described the affair as a “tabloid construct” and said his actions came when he was in a “very dark place”, the Manchester Evening News reported.

Danczuk has been a prominent campaigner against child sexual exploitation and played a leading role in exposing his predecessor as MP for Rochdale Sir Cyril Smith as a paedophile.

The 49-year-old MP, who has repeatedly hit the headlines for his personal life, remains confident that he will be reinstated.

In March this year he agreed to repay more than £11,000 in expenses after saying he had made an error in claiming extra accommodation costs for two children who did not “routinely” live with him.



Danczuk said he had made the claims on what he believed at the time to be an accurate interpretation of guidelines from Ipsa, the parliamentary expenses watchdog.

Danczuk has been contacted for a comment.

• This article was amended on 5 July 2016 to hyperlink to the source document and to remove an incorrect reference to the Manchester Evening News being the FoI requester. It was Rochdale Online.