VAZ SHAMED AGAIN
SCANDAL-HIT FORMER MP BULLIED CLERK SO BADLY SHE LEFT JOB, REPORT FINDS
A FORMER Labour minister engaged in ‘hostile, sustained and harmful’ bullying against a member of parliamentary staff, an official report has found.
Keith Vaz harassed the woman to such an extent that she left her House of Commons career, a panel said.
It added that the former Leicester East MP should be ‘ashamed’ of his behaviour, ruling he should never again be allowed to hold a Commons pass.
Mr Vaz – who was suspended from the Commons two years ago after a Sunday newspaper sex and drug scandal investigation – had likened Jenny McCollough to a prostitute, told her she could not do her job because she was not a mother, and threatened to take photographs of her drinking alcohol to show to her boss.
Sir Stephen Irwin, chair of the Independent Expert Panel, said his actions had a ‘real and enduring psychological impact’. It came after the Parliamentary
Commissioner for Standards found that on several occasions between July 2007 and October 2008 Mr Vaz breached the bullying and harassment policy in his interactions with Ms McCollough, a clerk on the home affairs committee which he chaired.
The 64-year-old former Europe minister, who was in the Commons for more than 30 years, declined to cooperate with the investigation, claiming he was too ill.
However, the latest blow to his reputation would appear to end the political career of a once-powerful figure under Tony Blair’s leadership.
Mr Vaz stood down from parliament at the 2019 election, having been handed a six-month suspension from the Commons after he was caught offering to buy class A drugs for male sex workers. The Sunday Mirror reported in 2016 that the MP, posing as an industrial washing machine salesman called Jim, invited the sex workers into his flat and offered to pay for cocaine for another man to use. Threats: Keith Vaz. engaged in ‘sustained. and hostile’ bullying of. the woman, said the.
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