A Conservative Member of Parliament who was previously under fire for owning a “sugar daddies” website which exploited financially vulnerable young women has been convicted for fleeing the scene of a car accident in November 2021. The conviction comes just months after the politician came out as “transgender.”
Jamie Wallis, who has represented the riding of Bridgend since 2019, had initially pleaded not guilty to four offenses including failing to stop, failing to report a road traffic collision, driving without due care and attention and leaving a vehicle in a dangerous position. He was found guilty on three of the four offenses today.
The Tory politician has been banned from driving for six months and fined £2,500 as a result of his conviction. He was also ordered to pay additional costs of £620 and a victim surcharge of £190.
Cardiff Magistrates Court heard today how Wallis was allegedly wearing high heels and a black leather-style mini-skirt when he swerved to avoid a cat, crashing into a lamp post.
The court also heard how locals, Adrian Watson and Natalie Webb heard the crash at around 1am and allegedly witnessed Wallis at the scene. Watson said he looked inside the car and saw “a white male wearing a white long-sleeve top which was tight to the body, a black leather-PVC mini-skirt, tights, dark shoes with a high heel and a pearl necklace.” He then described Wallis walking away from the scene.
After the incident, Wallis was arrested at 7:21 am and subsequently suspended from driving. One of the arresting officers, Police Sergeant Gareth Handy describes arriving at Wallis’s “mansion” and having to force entry into the property. Another officer then found the politician asleep with “make up on his face,” and described seeing a blond wig on the nearby table.
Wallis was challenged about why he fled the scene and he avoided the questioning, stating that he had taken medication after arriving home and had fallen asleep soon after. However, the court heard that Wallis had made numerous calls and sent a number of text messages immediately after the incident, but did not call police.
During an earlier hearing, Wallis claimed to have been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to having been the victim of sexual assault in 2021. Wallis also stated he had been meeting men online for sex despite being married to a woman, and the alleged sexual assault occurred during one such meeting.
In 2020, an unknown individual attempted to extort Wallis, demanding £50,000 from the politician and threatening to expose him for his sexual proclivities. Wallis reported the blackmailer to the police and he was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to 2 years and 9 months in prison.
In the run-up to the trial in March, Wallis “came out” as transgender by posting a statement to his Twitter account. The politician wrote: “I’m trans. Or to be more accurate, I want to be.” Wallis was met with mixed reaction, with some, including then-UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, congratulating him on his “bravery.”
Despite coming out as trans, Wallis has not taken any steps to medically or even socially transition, arriving in court today in a suit. In his earlier statement on his gender identity, he encouraged people to continue to address him by masculine pronouns.
This is not the first time the politician has been in the spotlight.
In 2020, Wallis was exposed as having co-owned a site called Sugar-Daddies.net, which solicited financially vulnerable people to advertise themselves for sexual connections with “sugar daddies.” While the site claimed it was not sex-specific and welcomed “boys [and] girls,” the market is typically understood as wealthy older men willing to “sponsor” much younger women in exchange for sexual favors.
Wallis’ involvement with the site was exposed by a Buzzfeed investigation, which noted that he had initially denied any involvement with the venture.
“The site appears to have been owned and operated by a company named SD Billing Services Limited. For the avoidance of any doubt, I have never had a financial interest, nor been a director of SD Billing services Limited and cannot comment on its operational activities,” Wallis had told Buzzfeed reporters.
But an annual return filed by SD Billing Services in 2008 demonstrated that 100% of its shares were owned by a company called Fields Group Limited, of which Wallis was a director and shareholder. As a result, Wallis was, in fact, the legal co-owner of Sugar-Daddies.net.
After Wallis’ stake in the site was revealed, Labour politician Jess Phillips called on the Conservatives to expel him from the party.
“Let’s be clear: sugar daddy is a euphemism for something deeply ugly: exploitation of women by powerful men,” Phillips’ campaign said. “The Tories should feel ashamed sitting alongside Jamie Wallis. The only way to show they don’t condone this kind of behavior is to remove the whip.”
At the time, Labour Member of Parliament Tonia Antoniazzi also backed Phillips’ call to expel Wallis, saying she was “really concerned” about him, and adding that his track record was “dubious.”
Even before the Sugar-Daddies.net scandal, Wallis’ past business ventures had been heavily scrutinized. Several of the companies Wallis owned or had financial interest in proper to being elected to Parliament had been subjected to “hundreds” of trading standards complaints by consumers.
One of Wallis’ other companies was an outsourcing agency which fielded jobs to Thailand where staff were paid the equivalent of $3.27 USD per hour. In some of the agency’s listings, “females only” were requested.
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