The SNP has restored the party whip to a senior MP who has sat as an independent since June after an independent parliamentary inquiry found he made an unwanted sexual advance towards a teenage party worker. Patrick Grady quit the SNP group at Westminster after a two-day suspension from parliament, imposed after the independent parliamentary standards commissioner found he had made the advances to the then 19-year-old man in 2016. The man to whom he made the advances said the end of Grady’s suspension was “a slap in the face to anyone who has experienced sexual harassment”. Grady, who was the SNP’s Westminster chief whip from 2017 to 2021, sat as an independent after the Metropolitan police said they were investigating the incident at a pub in London. The Met subsequently said that after undertaking inquiries, including speaking to the alleged victim, it was taking no further action. A report in June by the independent expert panel, which hears appeals about investigations by the standards commissioner, said that at an SNP social event in a London pub in October 2016, Grady made advances to the man, including stroking his hair, neck and back. Grady, the Glasgow North MP since 2015, subsequently apologised. He said he had stopped when it became clear the advances were not welcome. An SNP spokesperson said: “Following a six-month suspension, Patrick Grady has resumed his membership of the SNP.” Grady’s case caused significant controversy within the SNP after a recording emerged of Ian Blackford, then the party’s Westminster leader, which seemed to show the Westminster group siding with Grady. To apparent applause from other SNP MPs, Blackford urged Grady’s colleagues to rally around him by “giving him as much support as possible”. The victim of the alleged assault, who has not been named, was furious and accused the party of failing to uphold its public claims that it had zero tolerance of sexual misconduct. He said its officials had instead sidelined and bullied him since he made the complaint. After the suspension was lifted, the man told the Scotsman the news had come as a shock. “The decision to give Grady his job back while I’ve lost mine is a slap in the face to anyone who has experienced sexual harassment,” he said. At the start of December, Blackford was forced to step down as leader of the Westminster group, with a number of his MPs unhappy with the way he had handled a series of issues, including the case of Grady. He was replaced by Stephen Flynn, the Aberdeen South MP.