A Reform UK mayor is under police investigation for allegedly showing naked pictures of himself to a female member of staff.
Luke Campbell, 39, the mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire and an Olympic gold medallist boxer, is alleged to have shown a senior female officer four fully “naked and sexualised images” of himself.
The woman claims she was forced out of her job shortly after the alleged cyberflashing incident took place in May, according to documents seen by The Observer.
It is the latest scandal to hit Reform in recent months, and comes after a year-long undercover investigation by ITV captured several of the party’s councillors and candidates using racist and sexist language, and raises questions about its handling of local government roles.
Written evidence detailing the alleged incident describes how Campbell allegedly called the woman over to his desk inside an office in central Hull and showed her the images on his computer.
The woman was left feeling “shocked, embarrassed and humiliated” after the mayor and male colleagues laughed at her reaction, according to the documents.
“I was deliberately exposed to naked and sexualised images involving the mayor in the workplace, without my consent, and was laughed at when I was visibly embarrassed,” the female officer alleges in one report. “In my view, this was unwanted conduct of a sexual nature which violated my dignity and created a humiliating, degrading and offensive working environment.”
It is understood that Campbell, a former bantamweight boxer who won gold at the 2012 London Olympics and was subsequently awarded an MBE for services to the sport, was interviewed under caution by Humberside police earlier this month. No charges or arrests have been made.
Campbell, who took part in the TV show Dancing on Ice in 2013, is considered a rising star in Reform and helped secure a landmark victory for the party in the May 2025 mayoral elections. He had previously said he was not interested in politics and claimed he became a Reform candidate only at the “last minute”.
He was invited to meet Nigel Farage in London shortly after announcing his candidacy, and the party leader posed in boxing gloves alongside Campbell on the campaign trail.
Farage later headlined a rally at Hull’s Connexin Live arena at the start of this spring’s local election campaign as part of Reform’s attempt to win control of the city council, which, he said, would “make Luke’s life easier”. Farage told local media he rated Campbell “a good eight” out of 10.
May’s election saw Reform gain 10 councillors, with the Liberal Democrats losing two seats, resulting in no overall control.
However, Campbell’s tenure has not been without controversies. In August 2025, the Telegraph reported that staff were in revolt over a “toxic working environment” at the newly created Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority (Heyca), resulting in him asking five senior staff to resign after a series of conflicts.
But this latest set of revelations suggests it is not solely a question of political priorities that is leading to concerns among Heyca staff.
In a second document, a witness confirmed that they saw Campbell and two male colleagues ushering a female officer to look at his laptop, which showed an image of a naked man with a tattoo, and that the incident left the witness feeling “uneasy”.
The witness detailed a number of other alleged incidents, including Campbell lowering the waistband of his trousers to show a tan line and revealing a tattoo on his lower abdomen.
About three weeks after the alleged cyberflashing incident, the female officer, who at the time was working as a contractor but had accepted the offer of a permanent role, was told via an eight-minute Teams call that the offer had been withdrawn.
Further documents, submitted as part of a complaint lodged at an employment tribunal, assert that she lost the position because of her “rejection of unwanted sexual conduct”.
Although the matter is now the subject of an internal grievance procedure at Heyca, concerns have been raised as to how independent that process will be, amid accusations that individuals named within the complaint had received witness disclosures, and questions over whether the authority is appropriately protecting witnesses during the process.
A spokesman for Heyca confirmed that the police investigation was under way.
He said: “As with all public authorities, the combined authority has a standards process that can be engaged to deal with complaints about members and a complaints procedure that can be used to deal with complaints about officers. The standards process and the complaints procedure must be carried out in a fair and independent manner.”
Neither Campbell nor Reform responded to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, which is ultimately responsible for governance at local authorities, said: “While we cannot comment on individual allegations, mayors should be held to the highest possible standards in elected office and combined authorities must have appropriate arrangements for protecting their staff, with the right safeguards in place when allegations are made.
“We have established processes in place to intervene in cases where they fail to meet these standards and will not hesitate to use them where required.”
Reform is battling against a series of revelations from a year-long investigation by ITV and Hardcash Productions, exposing racist and sexual language used by a number of councillors and candidates, raising questions about the party’s vetting processes.
Last week, the broadcaster released clips from the documentary, which will be screened on Sunday, in which Reform councillor Chris Whelan said of a female candidate: “If she was my daughter, it would still be bath night on a Thursday,” adding that he would sexually assault another female candidate if he was given the chance to hug her.
Separately, Alan Feeney, the deputy mayor of Solihull in the West Midlands, was filmed calling Asian homeowners “parasites”, and stating that “no more than 1% of [the] British population can be non-white… drag them out their homes, stick them on planes and fuck them off to Pakistan.”
Both men have since resigned.
In response to ITV’s investigation, Reform said: “Where members, activists and councillors have clearly behaved inappropriately, investigations have commenced. In some cases, there have been suspensions and due process must be followed.
“Reform UK has improved and prioritised its vetting procedures, but from time to time, a handful of individuals who do not share our values will initially make it through vetting. This is the same for all organisations.”
A Labour party spokesperson said: “These shocking allegations raise more serious questions about the standards Reform expects from those it puts forward for public office.”
Photographs by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images, Tim Warner/Getty Images