Newly elected Tory councillor featured leering at young women in ‘serial dads’ documentary

Emily Price 

A newly elected Welsh Conservative councillor appeared in a television documentary which showed him leering at young women and discussing life as a “serial dad” to ten children, Nation.Cymru can reveal.

Nick Baneswell won the Newport local by-election in Rogerstone North on Friday (May 8) securing 597 votes, with Plaid Cymru candidate Iestyn Davies coming second with 287.

His election agent, failed Tory Senedd candidate Jake Enea, welcomed the win, attributing it to Mr Baneswell’s “genuine relationships across the community”, adding that people in Newport “trusted him” because they knew him.

However, Nation.Cymru found that Mr Baneswell had appeared in an “Only Human” documentary for Channel 4 in 2021 using the name “Nick Portman”.

The shocking programme interviewed four “serial dads” who had fathered over 70 children with more than 40 women.

In a segment filmed at a social club Mr Baneswell used to own, he boasted to cameras that he had “never carried a condom” in his life as he discussed being a father of ten children and grandfather to three grandchildren from relationships with five different women.

The documentary’s commentator said his status as a “serial dad” was due to him jumping from one woman to another over a 20 year period, leading him to have a “relaxed attitude” about his relationships with women.

Mr Bameswell told Channel 4 he had never planned to have so many children.

Grinning, he said: “It was just, things happen, and I enjoy.”

Ladies man

The programme described the pub landlord as being “always on the lookout to impress the ladies with his man-about-town status,” as it followed him at work hosting a 50th and 18th birthday party at his pub.

Laughing, he told cameras: “I’d rather go to the 18th.”

In difficult to watch footage, Mr Baneswell was seen eyeing up a young woman who’s face had been blurred by Channel 4 as she entered the pub.

The 47-year-old asked the young woman if she was looking for the 18th birthday party.

As the woman passed him in the corridor, he pulled a sexually suggestive face at the camera before sticking his tongue out and laughing.

The documentary also featured Mr Baneswell’s 20-year-old fiancé Lauren who he had met when she was just 17-years-old.

The mother of one, who was 27 years Mr Baneswell’s junior, explained how he had proposed to her after just three months into their relationship.

Bar staff

She said: “He proposed to me when I was away, I’d come back and just said, here’s your ring – you know what it is.”

Telling Channel 4 about the difficulties of being with an older man who had an extended family, Lauren explained that she was younger than some of Mr Baneswell’s own children.

Cameras also followed the landlord as he interacted with some of the young female bar staff at his club.

Footage showed Mr Baneswell putting his arm around several young, blonde female staff members as he introduced them to cameras.

Describing her struggles at seeing her “first love” flirt with women at work, Lauren told Channel 4 that her fiancé was “one of the most flirtiest” men she had ever met.

“He will flirt with any girl,” she added.

Children

A Channel 4 producer could be heard asking a pub regular if the serial dad had “selected his bar staff carefully”.

Smiling, the male customer replied: “I’m not going to answer that because I might purge Nick – he gets on with them yes, and we’ll leave it at that.”

Mr Baneswell argued that his reputation as a ladies man came with his job as a pub landlord.

Later in the programme, he gave this thoughts about his relationship with Lauren.

He said: “The relationship that I’m in now with Lauren, we’ve got a ten month old baby and I’ve got to go work, she’ll want me home and I can’t be home – I like to do my thing.

“You know, if I want to go out – I’m going out.”

Despite having ten children by five different women, he would not rule out having more.

He said: “When do you say, having enough children is enough?

“You can’t say that, because you never know what is going to happen in the future, you never know about the next person that you meet, the person that you’re with, you never know what’s around the corner.”

Cheat

In a later segment of the programme, Lauren discovered that Mr Baneswell had been receiving text messages from another woman.

But her partner claimed he was being “stalked”, telling cameras, “because I’m in the public sector, I feel that this is what I do for a living.

“I basically ignore them, like you know, I don’t usually text them back.”

The show’s narrator explained that Mr Baneswell had previously found himself in hot water over his ability to “charm the ladies” – with his “wandering eye” often leading to relationship breakups.

Discussing being cheated on by her partner, Lauren said she would still stick by him.

Mr Baneswell mocked his partner, saying she stayed with him because she had “no choice”.

Inviting her to walk out the door of their home there and then on camera, Lauren replied: “No, I love you too much.”

Despite this, Nation.Cymru understands that the couple are no longer together.

Mr Baneswell’s eldest son, 24-year-old Ashley, also took part in the show.

He told Channel 4 cameras: “He is a flirtatious man but I am as well. I’ll have a couple of drinks and I’ll flirt, you know.

“I think that’s just men anyway, we are here just to flirt with women.”

Questions

Nation.Cymru asked the Welsh Conservatives if Mr Baneswell was vetted appropriately before being selected to stand in the Rogerstone North by-election.

We also asked if the party was aware that he had featured in a television documentary about men with a significant number of children.

We did not receive a response.

Nation.Cymru also asked Mr Baneswell’s election agent Jake Enea the same questions.

He initially responded with a statement saying the Conservatives had no prior knowledge of the documentary and that an internal investigation had been launched.

However, Mr Enea later retracted the statement and then accidentally sent Nation.Cymru a thread of all the friends, family and colleagues he had forwarded our press request to.

In the thread, Mr Enea claimed that newly elected Casnewydd Islwyn Senedd Member Natasha Asghar was the source of our story.

We responded to Mr Enea and all the email addresses he had sent our press request to firmly stating that Asghar was not the source of our story.

We did not receive any further response.

Nation.Cymru noted that, after we contacted Mr Enea, he deleted an image he had previously posted to X showing him smiling alongside Mr Baneswell.