‘We were happy – if he does this again, he’s out’
Ms Fernandes, a successful lawyer and part-time judge, reveals that:
Vaz tearfully begged her for forgiveness;
She had no inkling her husband enjoyed sex with men;
Their 19-year-old daughter angrily rounded on her father when the news broke;
Vaz has agreed to undergo a course of tests for sexually transmitted diseases after admitting having unprotected sex with the gay escorts;
Having initially moved into a spare room, she has now moved back into the marital bed because she fears Vaz might be suicidal.
‘He wanted to kill himself twice – once as Europe Minister [when he was embroiled in a scandal over passports] – and again now. He just wanted to die,’ Ms Fernandes said.
She spoke out as the Metropolitan Police confirmed that officers are considering whether to begin a criminal investigation into Vaz.
The allegations against him, laid out in a letter sent by a Conservative MP, have been referred to Scotland Yard’s special inquiry team to decide whether they merit an investigation.
The probe centres on claims that Vaz offered to pay for cocaine for the two rent boys.
Last weekend, a Sunday newspaper published undercover footage showing the MP for Leicester East with two Romanian prostitutes at a flat he owns in Edgware, North-West London, close to his family home. In the wake of the scandal, he quit as chairman of the powerful Home Affairs Select Committee.
The footage showed Vaz telling one of the escorts that he did not want to use cocaine personally but indicated he would pay for someone else to use it.
The revelations forced Ms Fernandes to reappraise every aspect of what she considered to be a largely happy marriage. But her focus over the past week has been on her children – the couple also have a son aged 21 – who have been left reeling by their father’s fall from grace.
She spoke of her own anger and said her husband had done a ‘terrible thing and had fallen… badly’. But she insisted she was speaking out because her love for him was ‘greater than her anger’.
As she readily conceded, many people will find it incredulous that after more than two decades of marriage she did not know the truth about her husband’s sexual preferences.
‘I did not suspect anything,’ she said.
In a separate development last night, Commons Speaker John Bercow was accused of a ‘cover-up’ over Vaz after a Tory MP released letters in which he had raised concerns about Vaz’s private life.
The Mail on Sunday has seen letters written by MP Andrew Bridgen last year, in which he asked Mr Bercow to take ‘all appropriate action’ to ensure that Vaz was suspended from his position as chairman of the Home Affairs Committee.
Mr Bercow refused, and shortly afterwards was pictured next to Vaz at a football match.
Last night Ms Fernandes said: ‘We’ve been happily married for a long time, we have two beautiful children, and we have a good life together, and he has threatened that by his behaviour. And if he does that again, then I’ll sling him out.’