DEVIZES MP Claire Perry has spoken exclusively to the Gazette about the furore surrounding her aide India Brummitt who is said to have had sex on a pool table with disgraced Tory party activist Mark Clarke.

Mrs Perry said: "India came to me last week and said she felt she needed to resign from political work. I told her she was probably right. When I interviewed her for the job with me she came over very well.

"I had about 80 people applying for the job and she was very strong. I have been very pleased with her work as my diary secretary. I accepted her resignation but she is working out her notice.

"Now I don't really know what to believe about what is being said in the national press. But I do think it is right for her to leave political work. She is only 24 and has plenty of time to do something different."

Revelations about an affair between Miss Brummitt and Mr Clarke, who was suspended from the Tory party after he was accused of bullying a young activist who went on to kill himself, were published in the Mail on Sunday.

Activists who went on Mr Clarke's pre election road trips as he worked to get Conservatives elected alleged the couple once had sex on a pool table in a south London pub.

The Mail on Sunday also claimed that Mr Clarke told friends he once accidentally dislocated Miss Brummitt's jaw when he slapped her during a consensual sex session, requiring her to seek hospital treatment in the early hours. Mr Clarke, who is married with two children, said the pair told doctors it was a netball injury.

During the election campaign she was a road trip organisers and campaign manager in Wandsworth, south London.

Mrs Perry said: "I am not embarrassed by this. India came to me with very good references and has done a very good job for me."

Mr Clarke, known as the Tatler Tory, hit the headlines again two weeks ago when he admitted trying to leak a lewd video of a Conservative activist engaging in a sex act.

Former party chairman Grant Shapps has become entangled in the scandal when he was blamed for taking on Mr Clarke as an election aide.

Mr Clarke has denied bullying Elliott Johnson who later killed himself and claims he himself was duped over the lewd video and he was only trying to protect others.