Simon Danczuk offers to meet up with teenager Sophena Houlihan to apologise over 'explicit text messages'
Rochdale MP invited Sophena Houlihan to meet up for a coffee and even said she could be paid if she agreed to being photographed by a media agency
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Your support makes all the difference.Simon Danczuk earlier this week asked to meet up with the 18-year-old girl who exposed sexually explicit text messages that led to the MP’s suspension from the Labour party.
Sophena Houlihan contacted Mr Danczuk on Saturday to say she wanted to apologise and four days later he responded and tried to persuade her to meet for a coffee by saying it would “actually be funny” and told her she would be paid a fee if she agreed to be photographed by an agency alongside him.
Mr Danczuk is facing the prospect of being expelled from Labour after Ms Houlihan revealed graphic text message exchanges between the pair.
Ms Houlihan was 17-years-old at the time and had initially contacted Mr Danczuk about a job vacancy in his constituency office.
The MP’s political career is now hanging by a thread and his future will be decided by Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee, who will investigate whether he "abused" his position of power with his behaviour.
The Sun newspaper revealed that the most recent text exchanges between the two came after Ms Houlihan contacted Mr Danczuk on Saturday – two days after reports of the sexual exchanges were exposed – to say: “I just wanna say sorry.”
Four days later Mr Danczuk replied saying: “Hi Sophena! I’m sorry too. Hope it hasn’t caused too much upset.”
He then explained to her that a media agency was offering to organise a rendezvous for the two of him.
Mr Danczuk wrote: “Come on, let’s do this first meeting . . . it’ll actually be funny!”
He added: “It sounds like a good idea to me, think they’ll pay you a fee etc take photos.”
But Ms Houlihan told The Sun that she felt insulted by Mr Danczuk’s offer.
“I couldn’t believe he was trying to arrange a meeting with me — and told me I’d make a few quid. What an insult,” she told the newspaper.
Mr Danczuk denied any wrongdoing and insisted he was trying to make amends with Ms Houlihan.