Britain’s Conservative MP David Ruffley miraculously survived after throwing himself under a train at London’s Victoria station last week, a media report said today.
Mr Ruffley, a one-time Tory high-flyer, tried to take his own life after he became depressed by public reaction to the expenses scandal, The Sunday Times reported.
His suicide attempt took place during the evening rush hour on Thursday when he jumped in front of the Gatwick Express. He escaped with cuts and bruises after the train passed right over him and he missed the live rail.
Quoting friends, the report said 48-year-old MP for Bury St Edmunds had been suffering from depression for more than a year.
“David did have his issues with his own expenses,” said one MP who knows him well.
“But he dealt with them just as we all did. What really got to him was the way the expenses scandal had turned the public against politicians in general.
“Politics is David’s life and it hit him hard.”
He was shadow police minister before the general election and there was surprise in official circles last month when he failed to get a government job.
Mr Ruffley who is single, is now being “well looked after,” the report said.
He is said to have spent 1,674 pounds on a sofa from Harrods and 3,350 pounds on a ‘lightly distressed’ limewood bedstead. Mr Ruffley was also accused of “flipping” his London and Suffolk constituency properties.
Mr Ruffley, who attended Cambridge University, got his big break in politics when he became special adviser to Ken Clarke when he was chancellor in the 1990s.
He entered the Commons in 1997 and quickly gained a reputation as a fearsome interrogator of ministers as a member of the Treasury select committee.
