Labour Party<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0spokesperson said: “Dan Norris MP was immediately suspended by the Labour Party upon being informed of his arrest.<\/p>\n“We cannot comment further while the police investigation is ongoing.”<\/p>\n
Police said a man in his 60s had been arrested on Friday on suspicion of sexual offences against a girl, rape, child abduction and misconduct in a public office.<\/p>\n
Sky News has contacted Mr Norris for comment.<\/p>\n
Mr Norris, 65, defeated Jacob Rees-Mogg to win the new seat of North East Somerset and Hanham in last year’s general election.<\/p>\n
He has also lost the party whip in the House of Commons and has stepped down from his role as chair of the League Against Cruel Sports.<\/p>\n
Avon and Somerset Police said in a statement: “In December 2024, we received a referral from another police force relating to alleged non-recent child sex offences having been committed against a girl.<\/p>\n
“Most of the offences are alleged to have occurred in the 2000s, but we’re also investigating an alleged offence of rape from the 2020s.<\/p>\n
“An investigation, led by officers within Operation Bluestone, our dedicated rape and serious sexual assault investigation team, remains ongoing and at an early stage.<\/p>\n
“The victim is being supported and given access to any specialist help or support she needs.<\/p>\n
“A man, aged in his 60s, was arrested on Friday (April 4) on suspicion of sexual offences against a girl (under the Sexual Offences Act 1956), rape (under the Sexual Offences Act 2003), child abduction and misconduct in a public office. He’s been released on conditional bail for enquiries to continue.<\/p>\n
“This is an active and sensitive investigation, so we’d respectfully ask people not to speculate on the circumstances so our enquiries can continue unhindered.”<\/p>\n
Mr Norris first entered Parliament when Tony Blair came to power in 1997 and served as the Wansdyke MP until 2010.<\/p>\n
He was an assistant whip under Mr Blair and served as a junior minister under Gordon Brown.<\/p>\n
Mr Norris has also been West of England mayor since 2021 but is due to step down ahead of May’s local elections.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for the League Against Cruel Sports, a UK-based animal welfare charity which campaigns to end sports such as fox hunting and game bird shooting, confirmed he had stepped down from his role.<\/p>\n
“The charity cannot comment further while an investigation is ongoing,” a statement said.<\/p>\n
Source: \u00a0![\"Sky](\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/sky-news-logo-1.png\")
<\/a> news.sky.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour MP Dan Norris has been arrested on suspicion of rape and child sex offences. A\u00a0Labour Party\u00a0spokesperson said: “Dan Norris MP was immediately suspended by the Labour Party upon being informed of his arrest. “We
[…]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29199,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[11165,6796,6418,209,11169,11166,11167,6595,11168],"class_list":{"0":"post-29198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"tag-alleged-rape","10":"tag-avon-and-somerset-police","11":"tag-child-abduction","12":"tag-child-sex","13":"tag-league-against-cruel-sports","14":"tag-misconduct-in-a-public-office","15":"tag-north-east-somerset-and-hanham","16":"tag-sexual-offences-act","17":"tag-wansdyke","18":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29198"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29200,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29198\/revisions\/29200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}