Man charged with assaulting former health secretary Matt Hancock

A man has been charged with assaulting former health secretary Matt Hancock on the London Underground.

Geza Tarjanyi, 61, from Leyland in Lancashire, will appear in court next month, accused of common assault and two public order offences, British Transport Police (BTP) said on Thursday.

A spokesman for the MP for West Suffolk described the incident that began at Westminster station on Tuesday before continuing on a Tube train as an “unpleasant encounter”.

BTP acted after receiving a report of a man being “assaulted and harassed” at the station next to the House of Commons before 9am.

Tarjanyi was released on bail to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on February 22.

After the arrest, Hancock’s spokesman said: “Both Transport for London staff and the British Transport Police were fantastic and the man has since been arrested.”

He added that “this sort of behaviour is a rare occurrence” and stressed the “importance of shutting down baseless misinformation which causes so much harm”.

Hancock, 44, was health secretary when the coronavirus pandemic struck and was a key figure in the lockdown restrictions and vaccine rollout that followed.

He resigned after leaked CCTV image showed him kissing an adviser in his office, in breach of his own social distancing guidance.

Hancock angered colleagues and constituents by jetting to the Australian jungle to appear on I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! but won some sympathy from TV voters to come third.

Having been stripped of the Conservative whip over the appearance, he said he will not contest his seat at the next election when he will step down.