More than two years after the previous revelations about his drugs use and other moral and ethical failings, film footage has emerged in a Sunday newspaper of Flowers taking class A drugs and entertaining male escorts at a hot tub party in his house in Salford, Greater Manchester.
Rev Paul Flowers, who was suspended indefinitely by the Methodist Church in 2013 but is still a Methodist minister, could now face disciplinary proceedings by the Church.
A Methodist church spokesman said in a media statement: "Our disciplinary procedure has been temporarily on hold following advice that Paul Flowers was too unwell to attend meetings. We are very disappointed by the new allegations revealed by the Sunday Mirror and the disciplinary panel will now review how we progress the matter."
Flowers, 65, known as "the Crystal Methodist", appears to have had a catastrophic slip back into drugs use since his four-week treatment programme in the Priory after the first scandal broke. The images obtained by the Mirror from a male escort appeared to show him taking cocaine and ketamine over four days, in the company of naked male prostitutes. One photograph showed him dozing with his naked nipple covered by a crisp.
The escort, who was paid £200 to attend the party, told the Mirror: "There were a lot of drugs. He just doesn't seem to care. He just seems out of control. When he was in the lounge he was getting a few lines ready on a plate. He did them side by side, one of cocaine, one of ketamine.
"He blames the press for everything and whenever the Co-op was mentioned he'd say 'the b******s'. He never spoke about his rehab."
In 2013 the Mail on Sunday published footage of Flowers spending £300 in a drugs deal and also reported text messages boasting of drug use and holding "drug fuelled" parties. He was subsequently convicted in court of drugs possession. In 2011 Flowers resigned from his position as Labour councillor in Bradford after "inappropriate but not illegal adult content" was found on his computer.
In addition, while deputy head of social services at Rochdale Council, Flowers became aware of paedophiles at a residential boys' school but failed to tell parents or to close the school. He was also responsible for rejecting allegations of child sex abuse against Rochdale MP Cyril Smith. He resigned as non-executive chairman of the Co-operative Bank after the bank lost £700 million in the first half of 2013 and a £1.5 billion hole in the bank's finances was discovered.
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