U.K. Lawmaker Apologizes For Playing 'Candy Crush Saga' At Hearing

King Digital Entertainment's online game Candy Crush Saga has millions of fans: British lawmaker Nigel Mills is among them.

AP

If you dislike meetings, you might empathize with Nigel Mills. He's a British lawmaker who had to apologize after being caught playing Candy Crush Saga on his iPad during a hearing. (As far as we know, he wasn't sending invitations to his Facebook friends to join him.)

The Sun newspaper printed the images of Mills, a Conservative member of Parliament from Amber Valley, playing the game Dec. 1 in Parliament during a hearing on pensions by the Work and Pensions Committee. The BBC reports that he played for 2 1/2 hours.

"I apologize unreservedly for my behavior at the committee meeting and realize it fell short of what is expected of a member of Parliament," Mills said in a statement.

He had initially told The Sun that he was "fully engaged" in the hearing but had "probably had a game or two."

The BBC reported that the House of Commons was investigating the photographs, which are a breach of parliamentary rules. But Mills won't be sanctioned, the Independent reported.

Conservative MP Sir Edward Leigh told the BBC he sympathized with Mills.

"I would say get a life. I survived nine years as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and I just about managed not to go to sleep and not to play computer games but my god, it was boring!" he said. "So if Nigel has to keep himself awake by playing computer games, good on him."

As we've previously reported, Candy Crush has more than 93 million users who play more than 1 billion times a day in total.