in order to maintain his job as a vicar. His older brother, Andy, a former Metropolitan Police officer, was elected in 2015 as a Conservative councillor in Peterborough and was appointed deputy Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner in 2016. After a mention in Coles' 2014 autobiography, he was accused of having deceived a 19-year-old political activist into a sexual relationship while he was a 32-year-old undercover police officer in the 1990s and resigned as deputy commissioner on 15 May 2017. This relationship was part of a wider scandal involving undercover police officers in the UK getting into relationships with political activists in this period. Coles is a member of the Labour Party. He is also a member of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), having become enthusiastic about GAA sports through watching the 2020 TV series Normal People. Family ties led to Coles selecting Cork, Ireland as his county and St Finbarr's as his club. The club responded by sending him a membership card. Coles moved to Friston, East Sussex in May 2022 to be closer to his friend and former manager Lorna Gradden. He said "I'll be living in a charming 18th-century cottage with a bow window that looms over the street affording a privileged view of my neighbours' comings and goings, as the scent of lavender floats across the village green." Musical career Coles learned to play the saxophone, clarinet and keyboards and moved to London in 1980, where he played in theatre. In 1983, he appeared with Jimmy Somerville in the Lesbian and Gay Youth Video Project film Framed Youth: The Revenge of the Teenage Perverts, which won the Grierson Award. Coles joined Bronski Beat (initially on saxophone) in 1983. Somerville left Bronski Beat and in 1985 he and Coles formed the Communards, who were together for just over three years and had three UK top 10 hits, including the biggest-selling single of 1986, a version of "Don't Leave Me This Way", which was at number one for four weeks. The band split in 1988 and Somerville went solo. Post-music career and church ministry Coles provided narration for the Style Council's film JerUSAlem in 1987 and also started a career as a writer, particularly with the Times Literary Supplement and the Catholic Herald. He took up religion in his late twenties, after "the best of times, the worst of times", pop success and the deaths of friends as