UK prime minister's close ally resigns after misleading statements about pornography

He admitted to misleading statements about pornography on his work computer.

ByABC News
December 21, 2017, 3:41 PM

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Theresa May’s de facto deputy resigned Wednesday night, after he admitted to misleading the public with two statements regarding allegations that he kept pornography on his work computer in 2008.

May accepted the resignation of First Secretary of State Damian Green, her right-hand man and an old friend, in a letter, with what she called “deep regret,” adding that she was “extremely sad.”

“I share the concerns that have been raised by police, and I expect those issues be properly investigated,” May said in a press conference during her visit to Poland.

PHOTO: Pictured (L-R) are Britain's First Secretary of State Damian Green, Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and Britain's Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, and Chief Whip, Gavin Williamson, in central London, June 26, 2017.
Britain's Conservative party leader and Prime Minister Theresa May (2L) sits with Britain's First Secretary of State Damian Green (L), and Britain's Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, and Chief Whip, Gavin Williamson, during their meeting with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster, DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds, and DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson, inside 10 Downing Street in central London on June 26, 2017.

Besides allegations that he kept and watched pornography on his parliamentary computer, Green faces another allegation from writer and Tory activist Kate Maltby.

She wrote in an article for The Times in November that Green touched her knee "fleetingly" in a London pub in 2015, when the two were meeting to discuss the possibility of a future career for her in politics.

In his resignation letter, in which he said he was “asked to resign,” Green responded to Maltby’s allegation writing, “I do not recognise the events she described in her article, but I clearly made her feel uncomfortable and for this I apologise.”

PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is pictured during a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki at the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, Poland, Dec. 21, 2017.
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May is pictured during a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki at the Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, Poland, Dec. 21, 2017.

Green is the third Cabinet member May has lost in two months, after the resignations of Defense Secretary Michael Fallon, over allegations of inappropriate behavior with women, and International Development Secretary Priti Patel.

PHOTO: Pictured are Theresa May, Damian Green, Arlene Foster, Nigel Dodds, Jeffrey Donaldson 
and Gavin Williamson inside 10 Downing Street in central London, June 26, 2017.
Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May stands with Britain's First Secretary of State Damian Green, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster, DUP Deputy Leader Nigel Dodds, as DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson shakes hands with Britain's Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, and Chief Whip, Gavin Williamson, inside 10 Downing Street in central London on June 26, 2017.