U.K. official quits after cruising scandal

Ron Davies, a former cabinet member in the United Kingdom and a Welsh assembly member, was forced to quit his political career this weekend after local party officials demanded he step down following allegations that he engaged in sex in a gay cruising area, The [London] Guardian reports. Ron Davies's resignation follows the Sun newspaper's decision to publish photographs of him leaving a gay cruising area near Bath. At first Davies, who acknowledged he is bisexual after a similar scandal four years ago, said he hadn't been at the Bath cruising area for 15 years. Later he admitted that he had "stopped in the car park to go to the lavatory and went for a short walk in an adjacent area of public woodland." "I have handled this not very well," Davies said. "In retrospect I should have handled it another way. I don't feel devastated; I feel badly bruised. This has taken a huge toll on me physically, emotionally, and mentally." Asked about his plans for the future, the married Davies said, "What I will need to do over the next two or three months is take a little step back. I have to consider what I do. I will have to reflect. There will be things that come out of this. I can spend more time, as politicians say, with my young family."