A senior Foreign Office civil servant has been charged with racially aggravated harassment and bailed to appear at City of Westminster magistrates’ court next week.

Rowan Laxton, 48, of Cleveland Square, Bayswater, has been charged under sections of the Public Order Act 1986 and the Crime and Disorder Act 1998.

Mr Laxton was arrested in January following an incident in a gymnasium in Regent’s Park. He is head of the South Asia group at the Foreign Office.