: How lothario MP became obsessed with Eastern European women
By Stephen Wright and Christian Gysin
Last updated at 3:07 AM on 7th December 2010
- Mike Hancock insists attractive companions were 'only interns'
- Former assistant arrested over suspected espionage
- Europeans and Lib Dems concerned by his support for Russia
Lib Dem rebel: MP Mike Hancock expressed support for Vladimir Putin and brought young Russian women to high-level meetings
Womanising MP Mike Hancock helped a pretty young Russian student stay in the country after her three-month marriage to one of his constituents collapsed, it emerged last night.
He advised Ekaterina Paderina, then 25, that she had every right to remain in Britain after she fell out with her middle-aged husband.
The Liberal Democrat MP met Miss Paderina on several occasions following the demise of her marriage to retired merchant seaman, Eric Butler, then 54, in the late 1990s.
There is no suggestion they had an improper relationship.
But observers see the case as further proof of Mr Hancock’s fascination – or indeed obsession – with attractive young Eastern European women.
One said: ‘For some reason, Mr Hancock is a honeypot for pretty Russians.’
And it seems he might not mind travelling further afield to share their company.
Yesterday it was claimed that Mr Hancock entertained a string of young women on a series of foreign trips with MPs, telling colleagues that they were ‘relatives’ or ‘stenographers’.
Yesterday Miss Paderina, who after her divorce went on to marry a wealthy British businessman in 2001, only had praise for the MP.
‘I think Mr Hancock is a very nice person,’ she said at her large detached home in Bristol.
‘As much as the guy’s helped me, I don’t feel the need to talk to anyone regarding if he’s a good or bad person.’
She told the Daily Mail she had been introduced to the MP by her first husband during the breakdown of her marriage.
Bubbly personality: Russian beauty Ekaterina Paderina was grateful for Mr Hancock's help when her marriage broke down
Miss Paderina, the daughter of a ‘head of government property’ in Russia, claimed she had been abandoned by Mr Butler when she was six months pregnant, leaving her with nowhere to live.
With the help of a local church, she said, she was placed in local authority accommodation.
Mr Hancock denied that he had helped Miss Paderina get a visa or accommodation and said he had never had an improper relationship with her.
He said he got to know her and Mr Butler when they attended his constituency surgeries ‘on three, four or five occasions’. He said Miss Paderina already had her visa.
‘They came into my office. He wanted her deported. They had marital problems,’ he said.
‘I didn’t help her get her visa. God knows how she got her visa. That’s between her and the border agency.’
Deported: Katia Zatulitever was arrested by MI5 on suspicion of espionage while working for a Lib Dem MP
The emergence of another attractive young Russian in Mr Hancock’s circle was little surprise to the MP’s colleagues.
Three who shared Defence Select Committee visits with him overseas revealed that his antics were a ‘running joke’ among MPs.
One MP claimed that on a tour of the Ukraine a decade ago, he saw a young woman several decades Mr Hancock’s junior visit his hotel room late at night.
Another said that he boasted over breakfast that he had ‘hired a stenographer’ for ‘secretarial work’ in the small hours of the morning.
A third MP said that the Liberal Democrat MP was regularly seen in the company of women ‘young enough to be his daughter’ and would take them for dinner at expensive restaurants while fellow MPs dined elsewhere.
Mike Hancock and his wife Jacqueline: They married in 1967 and she has always stood by her man, dismissing his female accusers as 'nutters'
Mr Hancock was a fixture for a decade on the Commons Defence Select Committee, which took regular fact-finding tours to the United States and Eastern Europe.
One MP told the Mail: ‘I remember a trip to the Ukraine ten years ago. There was a young woman. I saw her go along the corridor and go into a room late at night. It was not her room.
‘There were a number of occasions where he would arrive at receptions at hotels where we were staying with women who were 25 or 30 years younger than him. It was a joke between colleagues. He wouldn’t always say who they were. He would introduce them as a relative with a big grin. He would often go out with them in the early evening and return with them later.’
Another MP who shared trips with Mr Hancock added: ‘I was with him once when he came down for breakfast and someone asked him how his evening had been and he explained that he had hired a local stenographer and “got a lot of work done during the night”.’
The third MP said: ‘He mostly didn’t want to dine with the rest of us. He would be off with someone, usually a woman young enough to be his daughter.’
The Guardian newspaper reported yesterday that Mr Hancock has repeatedly been in the company of glamorous young Eastern European women at meetings of the Council of Europe’s liberal group in Strasbourg.
‘They were all the same type: long-legged, good-looking blondes, never older than 25, fluent in French, English and often German, and with a higher education,’ said Mr Mátyás Eörsi, the former head of the European liberal group.
Another group member, who declined to be named, told the paper: ‘I’ve been in Strasbourg since 2004. I remember at least five of Mike’s Russian female assistants.’
Former colleagues said they had raised serious concerns about the activities of Mr Hancock’s young Russian companions.
They said they saw them using the computers of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (Alde), the liberal group secretariat, which were supposed to be protected by a password.
Ukrainian MP Serhiy Holovaty, a former justice minister, said he had asked for a ban on Mr Hancock’s Russian ‘assistants’ from future meetings, adding that he was convinced they had ‘links’ to Russia’s FSB spy agency.
Colleagues also said they were bemused by Mr Hancock’s boasting about his lifestyle in Strasbourg, which allegedly included shopping trips with his Russian assistants.
Mr Hancock last night denied that he ever entertained a woman in his room on foreign trips. ‘It’s absolute rubbish,’ he said.
‘I only went on a few trips. I went on one to America and another to Russia and the Ukraine and there was another to Romania and Bulgaria when they were applying for accession to Nato. I’m telling you it’s tosh. There are a lot of people who want to make a bit of mischief but I’m at a loss to understand why.’
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