A trial lasting two to three weeks is only expected to start in October 2027 in England’s backlogged court system.
Steadman is also charged with with five other offences of improper use of a public communications network. He is accused of sending a series of menacing messages to Wragg between February and March 2024, the same dates as the blackmail charge, and of sending an indecent image to each of four people including Luke Evans, Ben Everitt and Ross Thomson, who were Conservative MPs at the time.
Steadman did not enter a plea to the other five charges at Southwark Crown Court on Wednesday.
The Metropolitan Police launched an investigation in April 2024 after POLITICO revealed that several men in Westminster, including MPs, had received unsolicited WhatsApp messages from users calling themselves alternatively “Abi” or “Charlie.” The series of events was quickly dubbed the “Westminster honeytrap scandal.”
Wragg resigned the Tory whip, saying he had leaked colleagues’ personal phone numbers to a person he encountered on the dating app Grindr. He added in a later interview that he felt “enormous remorse” and had experienced suicidal thoughts.