'I was targeted in Westminster cyber-flashing plot'
Newscast
BBC
4.4 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we look at the phishing plot targeting people who work in and around Westminster. Journalists, including Newscast’s own Henry Zeffman, and MPs have received flirtatious messages and explicit pictures from unfamiliar WhatsApp profiles. No one yet knows who are behind the WhatsApp accounts - or how they are choosing who to target.
Henry speaks to Adam about his experience of receiving suggestive messages from the unknown WhatsAppers. And Dr Luke Evans, Conservative MP for Bosworth, talks about his experience of being sent unsolicited explicit images, and why he’s chosen to speak out after reporting the WhatsApp communications to the police.
Henry Zeffman has written more about his experience here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68761113 You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Miranda Slade and Joe Wilkinson. The technical producer was Michael Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:04.8 | Hello, on today's episode of newscasts, |
| 0:06.7 | we're going to focus on a story that bubbled up last week, |
| 0:10.4 | but where there's been a few developments today. |
| 0:13.0 | And the story is somebody or someone or something |
| 0:16.0 | masquerading as people called Charlie and Abbey |
| 0:19.0 | watsapping loads of people around Westminster, |
| 0:22.0 | including MPs, with flirty messages, questions, and in some cases explicit photographs. |
| 0:30.0 | And the developments that there have been in that story is that one of the people who was targeted, |
| 0:35.1 | the Conservative MP Luke Evans, said he would do an interview with Newscast. |
| 0:39.6 | And the other development is that one of the Newscast family, Henry Zefman, BBC Chief Political |
| 0:45.1 | Correspondent, has written a piece on the BBC News website on Monday afternoon saying |
| 0:49.8 | that he also received some of these messages and there was a sort of a twist to this |
| 0:55.6 | tale in the middle of last week which was that a conservative MP called |
| 0:59.3 | William Ragg who's the chairman of a select committee, said that he had been contacted by somebody |
| 1:05.4 | on the gay dating app grinder, felt quite intimidated by that conversation, and was intimidated, |
| 1:11.3 | he said, into handing over phone numbers of people he knew, something for |
| 1:16.4 | which William Ragg has said he's very sorry. |
| 1:20.3 | Anyway, there are lots of questions, although I suspect not as many answers as we might like, |
| 1:25.0 | about all of this on this episode of Newscast. |
| 1:28.0 | Newscast. Newscast. |
| 1:29.0 | Newscast from the BBC. |
... |
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