Police were first aware of a streamer targeting people involved in UK politics in late 2023, but the news began to emerge more widely in April after a report appeared on news site Politico. Catfishing involves creating a fake online identity to deceive and control others.

Wragg was on the train when he saw the article. “My stomach dropped,” he says. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this must have a lot to do with the person I’m interacting with.’

When contacted by a reporter from the Times, Wragg admitted that he had chatted with someone on an application and that the person then asked him for other people’s numbers.

He apologized for his “weakness”, resigned from his post in the Conservative Party and stood down from his roles on two parliamentary committees. He had already announced that he would not be a candidate in the next general election.

“When I found out about some of the things that had happened, I felt a tremendous amount of guilt, a tremendous amount of remorse,” he tells me. “My mood dropped.”

Wragg had struggled with his mental health in the past and had long stopped taking his antidepressants; He thinks this was a factor in the suicidal thoughts that led him to hospitalization.

The catfishing operation in Westminster was very complex and had been going on for months before Wragg got involved. But he acknowledges that his actions also caused his friends and colleagues to suffer.

Wragg said he felt “a great deal of remorse” and was “trying to apologize”, adding: “I hope I can explain it in the context of this person’s influence over me and the sense of almost control.”

But a former MP who believes his number was passed on by Wragg told the BBC: “None of us have received an apology from Will as far as I recall… It might be an idea for him to apologize to those he’s messed up.”

Contrary to some previous speculation, police said they did not believe any other foreign government was involved. In June, a member of the Labor Party in his mid-20s was arrested in London on suspicion of harassment and offenses under the Online Safety Act. He was released on bail until the end of November.