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Lib Dem exposed for using male prostitutes has yet more to tell
Mark Oaten MP
MP Mark Oaten's affair with a man at age nine
MP Mark Oaten has claimed that he had a sexual relationship with a man when he was nine or ten. The married Lib Dem, who exited the party's leadership contest in 2006 when it was revealed that he had used male prostitutes, has written about the affair and the scandal that derailed his political career in a tell-all memoir to be published on September 18.
Screwing Up: How One MP Survived Politics, Scandal and Middle Age, which will appear the day before the Lib Dem conference starts, relates how, at the age of nine or ten, he became involved with a much older, unnamed man over a two-year period. The man was in "a position of trust," Oaten says, but "I have never felt abused, hold no grudge and do not wish to drag the case up today. Clearly it was wrong, but it happened and I've not been that worried about it."
When his use of male prostitutes made the news during the Liberal Democrat leadership contest of January 2006, he blamed his "error of judgement" on his premature baldness and a dissatisfaction with politics, and his publisher, Biteback, said: "This is the story of a man obsessed by retaining his youth, fearing of turning 40 and feeling a complete failure."
He relates how, feeling depressed and stressed by work, he found a South London male escort in the back of a magazine. Oaten denies that sex took place, but says: "I had been fascinated by the experience and although I knew it was wrong I wanted to explore more. I carried on seeing him - each time I visited it was late at night and on an evening when I would be staying in London." The Winchester MP, who will stand down at the next election, says that his memories of his relationship with the older man resurfaced during counselling sessions after the 2006 scandal broke.
