Thomas Hogg: former DUP mayor loses MBE after sex offence conviction

Thomas Hogg received the MBE in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to local government.

He was elected to Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council and served as mayor but resigned his seat in 2019 and quit the DUP after criminal charges were brought against him.

In March 2021 the former councillor for the Macedon area of Newtownabbey was given a three-month suspended prison sentence after being convicted of inciting a teenage boy to take part in sexual activity at a function.

During his trial the court was told how he targeted the victim, then aged 15, in September 2019.

He offered to perform a sexual act on the boy and asked him to perform a similar act on him.

The court was told Hogg had only met the teenager for the first time at a public event attended by other young people the previous week. The boy vehemently rejected his suggestion and informed police.

The former councillor was also put on the sex offenders’ register for seven years and ordered to pay £1,000 compensation to the victim,

Belfast Magistrates’ Court heard the child sex offence has left the then 32-year-old’s political career in ruins and jeopardised his new financial career in the city of London.

His barrister told the court it had been “a moment of madness” which will have “catastrophic consequences” for the former councillor.

On Tuesday (August 22) the Cabinet Office listed Hogg among a number people who had forfeited honours.