Boris Johnson denies allegation he groped former colleague


British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday denied an allegation that he groped a former colleague two decades ago.
He was asked about it during the Conservative Party's annual conference. Charlotte Edwardes, a columnist with The Sunday Times, said the incident took place when she worked at The Spectator. Johnson was the magazine's editor at the time, and Edwardes said while they were at a company lunch, he grabbed her thigh. After Johnson first denied the accusation on Sunday, Edwardes tweeted, "If the prime minister doesn't recollect the incident then clearly I have a better memory than he does."
Johnson is also swatting down another claim, this one involving an American businesswoman he worked with while serving as mayor of London. Jennifer Arcuri ran a small tech startup, and received grants from the city and was able to accompany officials on overseas trade trips, The Associated Press reports. Britain's police watchdog is now looking into the case and whether city money was used improperly; Johnson said everything was done "with full propriety."
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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