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London Mayor Boris Johnson's former deputy has been left red-faced after a series of selfies revealing his chap found their way onto Facebook.

Richard Barnes, 65, has denied that he intentionally uploaded the frank pictures, which feature full frontal shots of his meat'n'two veg. The images were deleted soon after.

The photos (NSFW but pixellated) were first published on the website Trending Central, run by arch Tory commentator Raheem Kassam. There are some suggestions that the naked pictures were uploaded due to a misunderstanding of iOS 7's image-sharing feature, which allows fanbois to automatically upload their snaps to Facebook – though El Reg considers the odds of Cupertino's culpability to be fairly long in this case.

At the risk of sounding ungallant, El Reg can tell you that Barnes probably won't be receiving offers from the porn industry at the end of the scandal. The pictures show the former London Assembly "member" with a partially unfastened white shirt and sagging unbuttoned trousers.

Yesterday, he claimed his Facebook account had been broken into and told the London Evening Standard: “Have you ever been hacked? Well I have been hacked. Someone’s got in there and put the picture up.”

And he told the Metro morning newspaper: "[It was] utterly and totally a mistake. I’ve been hacked into. I’ve no idea [what happened]. I’m annoyed and shaking with anger. I’m a 65-year-old gay man on his own… It’s not the sort of thing I do. Do you really think I would be that f****** stupid after 30 years in politics?”

The scandal bears a resemblance to the tawdry tale of US congressman and New York mayor wannabe Anthony Weiner, who sent pictures of his, er, weiner to a young woman, although Barnes appears to have escaped with the support of his colleagues intact.

James Cleverly, a Conservative on the London Assembly, told the Evening Standard: “It’s a bit embarrassing but the simple fact is that he hasn’t actually done anything wrong.

“Whether he was hacked or it was a technology error, he’s a single guy, he’s not been unfair, unfaithful or exploitative, it’s just embarrassing. He’s a genuinely lovely guy and he’ll be mortified by this. I hope it blows over quickly.”

Barnes was deputy mayor of London from 2008 to 2012, losing his assembly seat to a Labour candidate in the 2012 mayoral election. He remains a councillor for the borough of Hillingdon in west London. ®

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