LONDON — A man has been charged with blackmail after a 17-month police investigation into unsolicited messages that were sent to prominent figures in Westminster.

Oliver Steadman, who had been a Labour councillor in Islington, north London, but resigned following his arrest in June 2024, was charged Wednesday with one count of blackmail and five counts of improper use of a public electronic communications network.

The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation in April 2024 after POLITICO revealed that several men in Westminster, including MPs, had received unsolicited WhatsApp messages from users calling themselves alternatively “Abi” or “Charlie.”

The messages seen by POLITICO were personalized to the recipients, and in several cases they included explicit photos. The series of events was quickly dubbed the “Westminster honeytrap scandal.”

A senior Conservative MP, William Wragg, later resigned the Tory whip after he admitted leaking colleagues’ personal phone numbers to a person he encountered on the dating app Grindr who, he said at the time, “had compromising things on me.”

A spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service said Steadman is “alleged to have sent WhatsApp messages to five people within Westminster circles,” and that the charge of blackmail relates to “alleged unwarranted demands for the contact telephone numbers of up to 12 individuals.” 

Malcolm McHaffie, head of the CPS Special Crime Division, said his team had looked into “alleged unsolicited indecent images sent to a number of people within parliamentary political circles between October 2023 and April 2024 using WhatsApp.”

Steadman, 28, was remanded in custody Wednesday and is due to make a first appearance at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Nov. 3. He has not yet entered a formal plea.