Suella Braverman says she’s victim of a ‘political witch-hunt’ after admitting mistakes in ‘security breach’ grilling

SUELLA Braverman accused her critics of launching a " political witch-hunt" today after they grilled her over leaking sensitive Home Office documents.

Ms Braverman broke her silence this evening to admit she "made mistakes" by emailing official government papers from her personal phone.

The Home Secretary sent classified documents from her private device SIX times in the space of less than two months.

In a bombshell mea culpa letter addressed to the Commons Home Affairs Committee this morning, Ms Braverman revealed she only used her personal phone so that she could use her work phone to join conference calls at the same time.

Justifying her behaviour to MPs in the Commons this evening, a defiant Ms Braverman said:" I've been upfront about the details. I've apologised at I've taken responsibility...

"I hope the House will see that I'm willing to apologise without hesitation for what I've done and any mistakes that I've made.

"But what I will not do under any circumstances is apologise for things that I haven't done."

The six emails were sent between October 6 and September 19, when Ms Braverman was serving under Liz Truss.

In her letter to Committee Chair Diana Johnson, the Home Secretary said: "In all of these incidents, it was more practicable to use my personal phone to read the documents and was within permitted use.

"Such use of my personal IT was reasonable and carried out in the public interest in order to enable me to do my job."

Ms Braverman accused her Labour critics of launching a "political witch-hunt" as they grilled her over the leaks and problems at the Manston migration centre in the Commons.

She said: "This political witch hunt is all about is about ignoring the facts of the problem."

On one occassion Ms Braverman leaked the ex-PM's proposals for a “Growth Visa” to lure highly-skilled migrants to Britain in a £14billion boost.

She was promptly sacked by Ms Truss before being controversially reappointed by Mr Sunak just six days later.

Ms Braverman is under even more fire for trying to cover up the Growth Visa leak by telling the person sent the message to delete it.

Emails seen by the BBC show she told the recipient of the highly sensitive message to “delete and ignore” it at around 10am — two and a half hours after the original breach.

But it was not until around midday that she reported it to officials.

None of the six emails the Home Secretary sent were classified as SECRET or TOP SECRET.

The Home Secretary said: “In my appointment discussion with the new Prime Minister, I assured him that I would no longer use personal IT for Government business.

“I have requested briefing and guidance by security experts on what constitutes appropriate use of Government and personal IT.”