A man has been charged with blackmail as part of a probe into the Westminster honeytrap scandal.
Oliver Steadman, a former Labour councillor in Islington, has been charged after a probe into WhatsApp messages he sent to five people working in and around parliament.
He has been charged with blackmail and five counts of improper use of a public electronic communications network.
Mr Steadman has been charged with blackmail in relation to allegedly unwarranted demands for the phone numbers of up to 12 individuals.
One of the charges of improper use of a public phone network related to the same victim, with the remaining four relating to four other victims.
They were based on the sending of allegedly unsolicited indecent images.
Malcolm McHaffie, head of the Crown Prosecution Service’s (CPS) Special Crime Division, said: “We have decided to prosecute Oliver Steadman with blackmail and five communications offences in relation to a total of five victims working within politics and Westminster.
“This follows an investigation by the Metropolitan Police Service which looked into messages that included alleged unsolicited indecent images sent to a number of people within parliamentary political circles between October 2023 and April 2024 using Whatsapp.”
Last year a high-profile MP William Wragg was suspended by the Conservatives over his role in the scandal.
He admitted giving the phone numbers of colleagues to the scammer after he shared explicit images of himself when they began talking on a dating app.
Mr Wragg told the Times he was “scared” because the man had compromising information on him.
That April the Met had launched an investigation after “unsolicited messages” were sent to a number of MPs, staffers and political journalists working in Westminster.
It came after Politico reported that political figures had received the unsolicited messages from someone using two unfamiliar numbers calling themselves “Abi” or “Charlie”.
The messages would include details of the MPs and staffers’ careers and campaigns they had worked on to build rapport with victims. They would then descend into sexually explicit messaging, with “Abi” or “Charlie” sending graphic images to victims and asking for nude photographs in return.
It is understood that two of the individuals targeted responded by sending an explicit image of themselves, with the attack described as an attempt at spear phishing. Spear phishing involves scammers pretending to be trusted senders in order to steal personal or sensitive information.
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