UK councillor sends topless photo to group of mothers

Mohammad Maroof

A Pakistani-origin councillor in the UK sent a photo of a topless woman to a group of women during a meeting, prompting the opposition Labour party to suspend him for what he called an "honest mistake", media reports said Thursday.

Sheffield City councillor Mohammad Maroof posted the image on a WhatsApp group named 'Mums United', BBC reported. As the group's founder Sahira Irshad presented a petition on knife crime, he sent the picture to the group, it said.

Maroof, who said that he was "very embarrassed" and has apologised for what he described was an "honest mistake", has been suspended by the Labour council pending an investigation, the report said. He said he was trying to attach a video of Irshad speaking at the meeting and instead accidentally attached the unsolicited image, which he received earlier in the day. He claimed that he asked for it to be deleted "within seconds" of sending it.

"This is my private phone and I receive so many things that my WhatsApp has been set up to automatically save everything in my phone's photo file. Somebody sent me this photo, it may have come in the morning, and it went into my phone's file," Maroof said. He said that he has sent an apology to the group chat.

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