The former MP Mike Hill breached parliament’s sexual misconduct policy but will escape any major sanction, an independent expert panel has found. The panel said Hill, who quit as Hartlepool’s Labour MP in March, could have faced a significant sanction had he not resigned. Hill is awaiting a decision from an employment tribunal that heard last week he had told a parliamentary staff member, known as Ms A, that he “craved her body”. She also claimed he climbed into her bed uninvited on two occasions, rubbed himself against her and fondled her breasts. But in a report that examined the process by which allegations to the parliamentary authorities against Hill were investigated, the panel also criticised parliament’s inquiries into the claims against the former MP. Sir Stephen Irwin, the panel’s chair, said: “The sub-panel took a very serious view of his conduct, and had he remained a member of parliament, a significant sanction would have been under consideration. “In the light of his resignation, however, the sub-panel concluded that no available sanction met the facts of this case and the specific circumstances of the responder. They therefore did not impose or recommend a sanction.” The panel also ruled he came up behind the woman in his Westminster office and “touched her inappropriately”. The Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, has stripped Hill of his right to a parliamentary pass as a former member. Ms A made three complaints under the independent complaints grievance scheme. First, that Hill had subjected her to sexual misconduct in accommodation; second, that he had again done so in a parliamentary office; and third that he had victimised and discriminated against her because she had complained. Hill denied all three allegations. An investigator employed by parliament to examine Ms A’s allegations only upheld her first complaint, a recommendation backed by the parliamentary commissioner for standards, Kathryn Stone. The independent panel re-examined the inquiry and this time upheld Ms A’s second complaint, saying the independent investigator, backed by Stone, had wrongly raised the threshold of proof while considering allegations of sexual harassment in parliament. “It is our view that the investigator raised the standard of proof in this passage to a level which was higher than justified. He [the investigator] wrongly stated that the allegation needed to be proved with evidence which is ‘very compelling’. “‘Compelling’ is a strong word with connotations of proof which is conclusive, irrefutable or convincing. There is no such requirement in the balance of probabilities test,” the report said. Two of Ms A’s three allegations were upheld and described as “proven” in Thursday’s report. “This was an error on the part of the investigator, which was not corrected by the commissioner. The commissioner wrongly concluded in respect of allegation 2,” the report said. The report also said Hill initially told the investigator he may have got into bed with Ms A on two occasions. “In an early interview with the investigator he admitted that he did get into bed with her once and may have done so twice. Only later did he say that he remembered just the once and, later still, he ‘strongly’ denied that there was a second time,” the report said. Hill told the employment tribunal he had gone into Ms A’s bed on one occasion. The tribunal is expected to conclude towards the end of June.