TORY sleaze returned to Westminster today with a former MP being reprimanded for “brazen and drunken sexual misconduct.”

Aaron Bell, who stood down from his Newcastle-under-Lyme seat at the general election, was found to have inappropriately touched a female member of staff in the notorious Strangers’ Bar in the Commons in December.

The Parliamentary standards commissioner announced that had Mr Bell still been a serving MP, there would have been a recommendation for a lengthy suspension from the Commons. 

Mr Bell said he was “disappointed” in the ruling while also apologising to all concerned for his behaviour.

He told the investigation that he had been “clearly drunk” at the time of the incident. 

The panel’s report found that he touched the staff member on her thigh, waist and bottom, causing her “shock, humiliation and fear.”

Mr Bell was a government whip at the time and was found to have  “abused his position of power over the complainant.”