While Keith Vaz ponders his future in parliament, Heat Street has been reminded of an unusual chapter in the Labour MP’s career which has been overlooked since news broke of his recent meeting with two rent boys.
There was a time when an MP facing the accusations made against #KeithVaz would resign as a matter of honour. Honour is now gone.
— David Vance (@DVATW) September 5, 2016
Back in February 2001 it was revealed that Vaz had taken part in what was described as a “bizarre campaign of intimidation against a housing chief who evicted a gay sex offender for not paying his rent”.
The Mail on Sunday reported that in the 1990s Vaz intervened on behalf of a Nigel Philpot-Jones, an unemployed plumber then in his 40s, who had fallen behind with his rent, by contacting the acting director of housing in his Leicester constituency, Ged Lucas, and “yelling” at him.
Vaz’s behaviour was later investigated in a confidential report by the district auditor which later became public.
Philpot-Jones’s case appeared to be straightforward: he was £1,396 in arrears and his eviction should have been automatic.
Nonetheless, his eviction was reversed.
But the district auditor’s report into the affair concluded that the rehousing of Philpot-Jones was neither rational nor reasonable and noted that Ged Lucas, the housing officer who made the decision, had felt “threatened”.
Vaz’s lobbying included writing to councillors claiming housing benefit owed to Philpot-Jones would pay off the arrears. Officials established this was not the case, and he was evicted.
Vaz then telephoned Ged Lucas several times to press for a review of the Philpot- Jones case.
Council sources said he “yelled” and was so aggressive two secretaries in the office were “visibly shaken”.
In a further lobbying exercise, Vaz then joined Philpot-Jones and his 18-year-old boyfriend, Nicholas Price Stephens, on a visit to Councillor Tony Robinson, vice chairman of housing.
Although Philpot-Jones was eventually allowed back to his flat, he was evicted again, in 1993, this time owing £3,260 in arrears and having been found to have sublet the flat.
At the time the Mail on Sunday reported the claims, Philpot-Jones was traced to a house in Earl Shilton, near Leicester, where he was found “drinking coffee with two young men.”
He confirmed to a reporter that Vaz had helped him get rehoused and apparently “bragged about having been sent to jail for gay sex offences.”
He told the paper: “I have been charged with every offence there is to be charged with. When I came to Leicester I basically controlled the gay scene. People know I have been in prison for sex offences. I was accused of all sorts of being a drug dealer and running rent boys. To my mind Keith Vaz was doing his job because council staff screwed up because I was owed housing benefit. I still say I owe Keith a great deal.”
What became of Philpot-Jones?
In 2012 he was found guilty of defrauding the Herts and Essex Air Ambulance charity of up to £5,000 and jailed for six months.
Chelmsford Crown Court heard that he opened a fund-raising shop in Walton-on-the-Naze without the authority of the air ambulance organisation.
The charity received just £5.92 of his takings – discovered in a collection box seized by Essex Police during a raid on the shop.
He admitted fraud by false representation, saying he had taken money for his own use, but he could not say exactly how much.
His barrister, Matthew Gowen, said: “He didn’t set out to defraud people.”
Perhaps not, but he succeeded in doing so.
