I felt enormous guilt, says ex-MP in honeytrap scandal

Warning: This story contains references to suicide

It was 4am one morning in April and William Wragg was at home in his cottage on the edge of the Peak District, unable to sleep.

“I really was having very dark thoughts,” he tells me in his first broadcast interview about his involvement in Parliament’s “honeytrap” scandal.

At the time, Wragg was a Conservative MP and a few days earlier he had admitted to a journalist that he had shared the phone numbers of fellow politicians with someone he had met on a dating app.

Since the story was published, photographers had been camping outside his parents’ home.

“I drove around to my parents’ house and said to them: ‘I need to go to hospital’,” he recalls.

That night his mother took him to the local accident and emergency unit. He was stooping as he leant on the front desk. “Have you got a bad back?” the receptionist asked cheerily. “No,” he replied. “I’m suicidal.”

Wragg had been one of dozens of victims of an individual who adopted the identities of ‘Charlie’ and ‘Abi’ and sent flirtatious texts to politicians, journalists and advisers.

Unlike others who had received messages unsolicited, he had been the one to initiate contact with ‘Charlie’ on the gay dating app Grindr.

“I was quite lonely to be honest,” Wragg says. “It was an evening at the end of January. I was back at my flat in London following a day at Westminster, and I was just on my blank online profile. And I saw his profile and messaged to say hello.”

‘Charlie’ seemed to know a lot about the world of UK politics and soon the conversation moved to WhatsApp. Wragg thought this might be the start of a relationship.

“I was actually very flattered because he was an attractive guy,” Wragg says. “And he had a manner in the conversation that was assertive, but slightly cocky. That’s an attractive quality too.”

Within hours the men had exchanged naked photos.

“Was that wise?” I ask.

“Obviously it wasn’t,” Wragg replies. “But when you’re in the moment it wasn’t a consideration. I know that might sound ridiculous, people think how stupid can you be? But we’re all human. We all have those desires. I’m as fallible as the next person.”

The pair spoke on the phone two or three times but when they arranged a date at a pub near Parliament, Wragg was stood up.

“It didn’t materialise obviously, because as it transpired he wasn’t real. But I didn’t know that at the time,” he says.

“And I didn’t hear from him until the next day. He was incredibly apologetic. I thought OK, he’s just had a bad day at work.”

The nature of this apparently fledgling romantic relationship soon took a darker turn when ‘Charlie’ asked Wragg to send him the phone numbers of other men who worked in Parliament.

“He said ‘you’ve got two minutes to send me these numbers’. And that’s when it, as far as I was concerned, turned a bit weird.”

Was he being blackmailed?

“I don’t know,” he says. “There was never anything that was explicit to say that, but I certainly felt a threat.”

Wragg also concedes that amidst the intoxication of possible romance he felt “a sense of wanting to please” ‘Charlie’. He ended up handing over around a dozen phone numbers, including for a number of MPs.

At the time, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Wragg was right to apologise, while minister Mel Stride called his actions “exceptionally inappropriate and ill-advised”.

I point out his actions made the situation worse, resulting in others also becoming victims.

“Yeah and that is why I felt guilt,” he replies. “That’s why I felt so, so sorry and shameful.”

‘Charlie’ also told a few of the men he messaged in Westminster that he was a former researcher for Wragg. He asked the MP to lie and say this was true. Wragg agreed.

“That is what I feel the most regret for,” he tells me. “Because it’s deceitful.”

Wragg started to have panic attacks. “I remember one evening getting back to my flat in London, waking my flatmates up because I was just in a complete state,” he says.

“I was shouting, crying, swearing, had this anger, and I didn’t know why. They were concerned but I couldn’t explain to them what it was.”

Police had first been made aware of a catfisher targeting people involved in UK politics in late 2023, but the news began to emerge more widely in April, after a story was published on the Politico news website. Catfishing involves setting up a fake online identity to trick and control others.

Wragg was on a train when he saw the article. “My stomach just dropped,” he says. “I thought gosh this must have so much to do with the person I’ve been interacting with.”

Approached by a journalist from the Times, Wragg admitted chatting with someone on an app who subsequently asked him for the numbers of others.

He apologised for his “weakness”, resigned the Conservative whip and stood down from his posts on two parliamentary committees. He had already announced he would not stand in the next general election.

“When I found out some of the things that had been going on, I just felt enormous guilt, enormous remorse,” he tells me. “My mood just plummeted.”

Wragg had struggled with his mental health in the past and had already stopped taking his antidepressants, which he considers a factor in the suicidal thoughts which led him to be admitted to hospital.

The Westminster catfishing operation was sophisticated, and had been under way for many months before Wragg became involved. But he concedes that his actions led to friends and colleagues also becoming victims.

Wragg says he feels “great regret” and has “sought to apologise”, adding: “I hope I can explain it in the context of the almost sense of control, the influence this person had over me.”

However, one former MP who believes his number was passed on by Wragg told the BBC: “None of us to my recollection have ever received an apology from Will… It might be an idea for him to apologise to those he dropped in the dirt.”

Contrary to some early speculation, police have said they do not think any other foreign state was involved. In June a member of the Labour Party in his mid-20s was arrested in London on suspicion of harassment and offences under the Online Safety Act. He has been bailed until late November.

Seven months on from the height of the scandal, Wragg has left the world of Westminster behind. He is much happier, he says, but still talks of the “shame” he feels and the “havoc” the catfisher wrought.

“I have no bitterness or anger left in me,” he says, when I ask how he feels about the catfisher. “Because I felt so wretched and awful in myself.”

He believes they were motivated by sexual kicks and by the power they held over others.

“My only wish for them is not to do it any more,” he says. “And to understand that impersonating or pretending to be somebody… it’s not victimless. It is very real and its psychological impact is particularly strong.”

Wragg hopes by speaking out he may help others to spot the signs of catfishing, and report it. ActionFraud has received almost 7,500 reports of dating scams so far this year.

“It’s a source of great shame that my time in Parliament ended in this way,” he says.

On his final day as an MP, Wragg had a consultation with a psychologist, which he jokes is “a fitting summation” of his nine years in the Commons.

“They have two mental health beds available at any one time for members of Parliament. And it’s surprising how often they’re occupied.”

The trauma of recent months has undoubtedly damaged his interest in dating. Does he think he’ll find love? “I hope so, yes,” he says. “But I’m being a bit more guarded at the moment.”

If you’ve been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via BBC Action Line