Where to now for Richard Worth? The MP may yet face criminal charges in a court of law. He will as likely not. Regardless, there can now be little question about the verdict of the court of public opinion.
And that verdict is driving the politics towards one inevitable conclusion - that Dr Worth at least be suspended if not expelled from the National caucus in reasonably short order.
The publicising of separate and detailed accounts from two women of alleged sexual misconduct on his part have tipped the political scales to the point where National MPs have little option but to eject him.
Not to do so would leave them with a walking embarrassment in their midst. National would be tainted - not by what Dr Worth is alleged to have done but by being seen to be allowing him to retain the status and perks which come from being an MP.
Dr Worth maintains he is innocent of any crime. He has reminded everyone that a person should be presumed innocent until proved guilty.
But politics is all about perception. Putting the police investigation and the question of charges firmly to one side, the perception is still all negative from National's point of view.
The Prime Minister has accordingly effectively begun setting in train procedures for expulsion by accepting Labour's offer to view Dr Worth's text messages to one of the women plus the log of his phone calls.
If they stack up, then Dr Worth will have been found to have culpably misled his leader - an unforgivable sin. That is all Mr Key needs to move against the MP, who will have few colleagues willing to go in to bat for him.
In talking about possible expulsion, John Key is effectively offering Dr Worth a final chance to resign from Parliament of his own accord and leave with some dignity still intact.
Dr Worth's hiring of public relations consultants suggests such messages are not getting through. The statement released in his name through Star Public Relations on Thursday evening was breathtaking in its defiance.
Its language was certainly not that of someone about to throw in the towel and creep away from Parliament for good simply because it might suit the National Party.
No sooner had his missive landed than the ground started to shift from under him, however.
First, Labour leader Phil Goff tabled in Parliament a separate statement from an Indian woman and Labour Party activist detailing improper sexual advances on Dr Worth's part over a period of months.
That was followed yesterday morning with the Herald's publication of an account of a sexual encounter between Dr Worth and a Korean businesswoman in March, which is now the subject of the police investigation following a subsequent complaint from the woman.
It was this complaint and his office's subsequent check on its veracity which prompted the Prime Minister to strip Dr Worth of his portfolios on Tuesday night and sack him from his post as a minister outside Cabinet.
Announcing the decision the following morning, Mr Key intimated, although he did not say outright, Dr Worth should use the two weeks' leave he had been granted from Parliament to come to the obvious conclusion that he could no longer remain an MP.
That Mr Key stopped short of demanding Dr Worth quit politics could be explained on two counts. First, no-one can force Dr Worth to resign as an MP. The Prime Minister would look rather powerless if Dr Worth thumbed his nose at him and refused to budge.
Second, Mr Key did not want to buy a fight with Dr Worth. It would have been a fight in which Mr Key could be the only winner.
But the Prime Minister would not have wanted a long bout which at best would be an unwelcome distraction and at worst start eroding National's political capital.
All of that has been rendered somewhat academic by the subsequent turn of events. The case for expulsion is now far more compelling - not that it wasn't pretty compelling on Wednesday.
Mr Key toughened up his language accordingly yesterday.
Putting as much distance between National and Dr Worth is now the Beehive's priority. However, the two weeks' grace offered to Dr Worth also gives Mr Key some breathing space - as does the fact that Parliament is not sitting next week.
That means no question time for Labour to try to score points over Mr Key's handling of the whole sorry episode.
The Beehive's political management has improved since the debacle surrounding Christine Rankin's appointment to the Families Commission. But there is still a sense of the Government reacting to untoward, unexpected events, rather than managing them when they happen.
The Prime Minister made things more difficult for himself by continuing to refuse to confirm the sexual nature of the allegations against Dr Worth.
He could have said early on that the allegations were of such a nature and referred further questions to Dr Worth or the police. That would have at least pricked the bubble of rumour and speculation.
However, apart from not wanting to jeopardise any potential criminal proceedings, Mr Key did not want to get ahead of the police, who have said little.
But that approach left Mr Key declaring that Dr Worth had failed to meet the high standards that he, as Prime Minister, had set for ministers without being able to explain how those standards had been breached.
Mr Goff too has come in for his share of criticism, much of it unfair. It was Mr Key - not Mr Goff - who raised the Indian woman's account of Dr Worth's alleged pestering by way of a remark to the Labour leader in Parliament.
Normally, the main opposition party would leave the Government to stew in its own juice. However, Labour was actually tied up in the affair by virtue of one of the women going to Mr Goff to complain about Dr Worth's behaviour.
Mr Goff's subsequent private call to Mr Key to tip off the Prime Minister was naturally treated with suspicion in the National camp.
Labour was gunning for Dr Worth at the time. So why would Mr Goff have done National a huge favour of keeping the most juicy material of all out of the public domain?
Paradoxically, Mr Goff's interventions - the latest being the tabling of the Indian woman's version of events - have been of huge help to Mr Key.
Labour has been less useful in questioning why the Prime Minister's office failed to check out Mr Goff's information with sufficient rigour and instead relied too much on Dr Worth's denials.
Mr Key says Mr Goff was not forthcoming with the evidence to corroborate the woman's claims. Mr Goff says he was.
Such bickering aside, if you are going to plunge a knife into a colleague's back, it is hardly surprising that things get messy.
- John Armstrong is The New Zealand Herald's political correspondent.
