TORY BULLY QUITS OVER DEBT THREAT
Minister ‘tried to intimidate a man’
Fred Willans in uniform
MP Conor Burns with Mr Johnson
DUNKIRK veteran Fred Willans is given a fitting send-off after his death, aged 100.
Pandemic restrictions meant only 10 loved ones could attend the funeral of the Second World War soldier.
But 400 people in Fred’s home town of Darlington, Co Durham, did him proud as they spread out around streets outside the crematorium.
Two fire crews saluted as the coffin, draped in the Union
Flag, carried Fred on his final journey.
A floral tribute from his family read:
“You will always be our hero.” Fred
Full honours for town hero
TRADE minister Conor Burns yesterday resigned after “threatening” a man who was involved in a dispute with his father over a debt.
Burns “intimidated a member of the public”, an MPs’ committee found. He quit as Minister of State for Trade Policy after the Commons Standards Committee suggested suspending him for seven days. MPs said Burns breached standards after threatening to escaped an Italian prisoner of war camp and scrambled on to the last boat out of Dunkirk. Sister-in-law Audrey Willans, 83, said: “I was so proud of Fred. He never asked for any help in all his life.”
The Last Post was played by a military bugler as Royal British Legion standard bearers lowered their flags in a moving tribute at the end of yesterday’s service.
Born on August 12, 1919, Fred joined the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division in 1937, when he was just 17.
He developed pneumonia and died on St George’s Day. use his position in Parliament to settle the spat. In February, he wrote to a man connected to a firm that owed money to his father in a long-running dispute.
On Commons-headed notepaper, he wrote: “I am acutely aware that my role could attract interest if I were to use parliamentary privilege to raise the case.”
The committee found: “Mr Burns used his position to intimidate a member of the public in a dispute relating to purely
Fred who died aged 100 private family interests. He persisted in making veiled threats to use parliamentary privilege to further his family’s interests, and misleadingly implied that his conduct had the support of the House.”
Burns told the committee: “I should not have written to the complainant in the terms I did. I am sorry.”
Burns played a key role in Vote Leave campaign. He is close ally of the PM and will remain the MP for Bournemouth West. Yesterday, he tweeted: “Boris Johnson will continue to have my wholehearted support from the backbenches.”