Luke Campbell, the Reform UK mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire and former Olympic boxing gold medallist, is under police investigation by Humberside police for allegedly showing "naked and sexualised" images of himself to a senior female colleague in May. He was questioned under caution earlier this month. He has not been arrested, and Reform UK says he "firmly denies" the allegations. The complainant, a female contractor who had accepted a permanent role at Hull and East Yorkshire combined authority (Heyca), described being called over to a computer screen and shown several explicit images of the mayor. She said she felt "shocked, embarrassed and humiliated" and that the conduct "violated my dignity and created a humiliating, degrading and offensive working environment." Approximately three weeks later, her permanent job offer was withdrawn via a Teams call. A second witness corroborated parts of the account, describing seeing Campbell and two male colleagues ushering the woman over to a laptop displaying an image of a naked man with a tattoo. That witness recalled Campbell lifting his shirt to show his own tattoo. These details were submitted as part of an internal grievance procedure at Heyca. Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries, now a Reform UK member, publicly defended Campbell by claiming the image was a 2013 magazine cover showing him bare-chested after his 2012 Olympic gold. However, witness testimony describing multiple fully naked images and a visible tattoo — absent from the magazine cover — directly contradicts that characterisation. Reform UK's spokesperson dismissed the allegations as leverage from "a disgruntled employee attempting to leverage a settlement in a meritless workplace dispute." The allegations emerged alongside a year-long ITV undercover investigation that captured racist comments from multiple Reform UK councillors and a prospective MP. One aspiring MP was suspended after telling an undercover reporter that Muslims could not be British and asylum seekers should be put in "concentration camps." Reform UK said it had opened investigations where members "clearly behaved inappropriately" and that there was "no room for racism" in the party. The dual revelations — one involving alleged sexual misconduct by an elected mayor, the other systemic racism across the party's ranks — arrive at a moment when Reform UK is seeking credibility as a governing force. Heyca confirmed a police investigation is under way and referenced its standards process for complaints about members. Humberside police has been contacted for comment. The pattern is familiar from other insurgent parties scaling fast: candidate vetting collapses under the pressure of filling thousands of seats. The question for Reform UK is whether these are isolated failures of discipline or structural consequences of a recruitment pipeline that prioritises celebrity and confrontation over institutional fitness.
