Sheffield City councillor Mohammad Maroof, has been suspended by the Labour Party after he sent a photo of a topless woman to a group of women during a meeting, and called this as an “honest mistake”.
A Pakistani-origin councillor posted the image on a WhatsApp group named ‘Mums United’. He sent the picture to the group when the group’s founder Sahira Irshad presented a petition on knife crime,
Maroof said that he was “very embarrassed” and has apologised for his “honest mistake”, and has been suspended by the Labour council pending an investigation.
He said he was trying to attach a video of Irshad speaking at the meeting and instead accidentally attached the unsolicited image, which he received earlier in the day. He claimed that he asked for the picture to be deleted “within seconds” of sending it.
“This is my private phone and I receive so many things that my WhatsApp has been set up to automatically save everything in my phone’s photo file.
“I sincerely apologise. I had no intention to do such a thing and to cause such disruption. I have a lot of respect for the group,” he said.
A member of the group, who did not wish to be names, said it was “absolutely disgraceful”.
