MP claims Tory bullied female opposition MP
A MAN has appeared before magistrates after allegedly making threats to one of his neighbours.
Azad Mirzai, of Coppice Drive in Netherton, was before Kirklees Magistrates’ Court via a prison video link.
He is charged with using towards James Spencer threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour with intent to cause him to fear that immediate unlawful violence would be used against him.
The Huddersfield court heard that the row outside Mirzai’s home was witnessed by another neighbour.
The 32-year-old denies committing any offence and his trial will be held on May 22.
He was remanded in custody in the meantime. MP Barry Sheerman has made allegations of “shameful” bullying in Parliament involving a Government MP.
Huddersfield’s veteran Labour MP spoke out over a recent case where he claimed a male Conservative MP had bullied a female opposition MP within the House of Commons.
Raising a point of order in the Commons, he said: “In all my years in this House I have never heard of a case of bullying in this House of one member against another.
“I have just heard of a case ... in the environs of this House, one member acting in a bullying way toward another.
“This case is shameful. I’m not going to name names but it’s a man, a Government MP, and an opposition female.
“I don’t even want an inquiry on it but I want a set of rules that verbal or any other sort of bullying of one member to another is not allowed in this House or anywhere in the environments of this House.”
Speaker John Bercow said the code of conduct of MP behaviour was “sacrosanct” and agreed to make inquiries into the allegations with the whips, the members who are responsible for party discipline.
He said: “There is a code of conduct and that code of conduct binds all members.
“I manifestly cannot comment on a particular case - not least because you haven’t given me and wouldn’t give and I wouldn’t ask you to give me the details of it.
“That principle that the code of conduct must be observed is sacrosanct.”