Warning: This story contains references to suicideIt 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.”‘Charlie’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 …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnWarning: This story contains references to suicideIt 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.”‘Charlie’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 …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
