KEITH VAZ AND THE SORDID ELEMENT OF LEICESTER

KEITH VAZ HELPED A CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER – WHY?

I have been looking in to Vaz for a few years now and I have to be honest, I simply don’t know where to start probing further because every story, every report, every Google search, every associate and every incident seems to lead down an unpleasant road.  There seems to be no endearing qualities about Vaz and the tentacles of his very being stretch for miles.

My sympathy is ultimately for his kids.  The very foundations of their lives as they know it has crumbled and I know that they will spend a long time trying to come to terms with what has happened and adapting to their new outlook on life and family.

I have already done my timeline blog on Vaz (which I am constantly updating) because the more that comes out, the more that needs adding!  I am also intending on producing a blog that contains local newspaper articles from an archive as well as collate as many online articles as possible.  It’s all on the ‘to do’ list.  In the meantime, I felt compelled to post this.  It’s an extremely telling article on Heat Street and, as usual, throws up more questions than answers when it comes to Vaz’s constant interference in matters that shouldn’t concern him, his treatment of those who don’t comply and the knock-on effect it has.

Is this another example of Vaz’s bandwagoning of issues to increase his profile, or something much seedier and deeper?  Read it and decide for yourselves.

By Miles Goslett|5:34 am, September 5, 2016

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.

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There was a time when an MP facing the accusations made against #KeithVaz would resign as a matter of honour. Honour is now gone.

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.

Nigel Philpot-Jones – ran the ‘rent boy’ scene in Leicester

• BBC Article 13 Nov 2012
• Previous company Now dissolved

The ‘Rent Boy’ Scene

Sadly the ‘rent boy’ scene (I hate that term) brings with itself much deeper elements involving abuse and exploitation, which was obviously the case in this awful story of Harish Purohit’s murder in Leicester from 2001.

Dean Riddell who murdered Purohit was referred to as a ‘rent boy’.  The very same rent boys Philpot-Jones boasted he ran in Leicester.

BBC News 9 July 2001

Purohit had worked for the council and adults with learning difficulties.

Purohit was also a long-term friend of Keith Vaz according to this article in The Telegraph

Keith Vaz, the MP for Leicester East, had known Mr Purohit for 15 years and had seen him last week at his constituency surgery where the priest had gone to talk about increasing the number of Hindus in the House of Lords.

Mr Vaz said: “He was very dynamic, not like your usual Hindu priest, with a big following, especially among young people.

“He was a different kind of priest, he was younger and less aloof.

“He had a particular following among the younger generation and his style was modern. I think he was a moderniser and tried to relate Hinduism to the needs of the community.”

So dynamic was Mr Purohit, that he picked up the desperate heroin-addicted Dean Riddell in Belgrave Road where Vaz has one of his parliamentary offices. The trial accepted that Riddell simply killed Purohit for his money.  Riddell, on the other hand, claimed that he was abducted from Belgrave Road and taken to an empty house by Purohit and another man, who left to get others men to join in.  In the meantime Purohit hit him and attempted to assault him which was when Riddell retaliated.

There is no evidence to say that Keith Vaz knew Philpot-Jones was involved in sexual offending and pimping out youngsters, nor that he knew about Purohit’s double life (although as it seems to have been common knowledge, he may well have done), but Keith Vaz has his finger in any PIE going.  He is a professional bandwagoner, social mover, and astutely keeps his ear to the ground.  Why didn’t he notice the plight of some of his constituents?  Or did he?  If Riddell was telling the truth, was there a ring of abusers in Leicester?  We all know the Frank Beck and Greville Janner revelations…

Total Ignorance?

The story also highlights the sordid and sad element that an ignoramus like Simon Danczuk completely misses.  Danczuk, using the Vaz expose as a media money-spinner (ironic considering that’s been Vaz’s role for the past 35 years), said we should support Vaz as someone who is figuring out “his sexuality“.  Sorry Simon, but the youngsters involved in selling their bodies aren’t doing it for fun and it’s time the media and people like Simon stopped normalising the exploitation of those who are desperate and do it to survive or are pimped out unwillingly or simply blackmailed in to rape (as demonstrated below)….

A traumatised young man telephoned The Times on the verge of tears.  He had read the glowing obituaries and was outraged to read “such lies” about the man who had initially befriended him and blackmailed him into submitting to a sexual assault by threatening to tell the teenager’s parents that he was gay.

 

….and the results can be devastating.

Some are just boys who are utterly petrified.  Boys too scared to speak out because they are in fear of their lives and so traumatised they take their own lives.  My message to Simon Danczuk is think before you speak.  Clearly your campaigning on child sexual abuse has taught you absolutely nothing as you come across as totally ignorant. (Oh and by the way, you still owe a charity some money, but that’s another story).

Drugs

Vaz’s recent expose also demonstrates the connection between prostitution and drugs. In many cases the youngsters are given free drugs in order to hook them on to it, they become addicted and then exploited to pay the bills – submissive because they desperately need their next fix.  The Purohit case is a perfect example of this. Vaz was filmed clearly asking someone to procure cocaine and he wanted to use poppers.   So now we bring in the other unsavoury element of drug pushers, traffickers and others in to the story.  Simon Danczuk may play down the prostitution element, but he fails to see the much bigger point.

Danger 

Keith Vaz also admitted to having had sex without using a condom. How many times has this happened? (Actually, please don’t bother putting answers on a postcard as I don’t really want to know the repulsive details).  The point is – has he picked up any sexually transmitted diseases?  Has he been tested?  He KNOWINGLY put himself at risk.  The people whom he procures for sex do not. Nor does his wife.

There are many more elements to this story and connections to explore but I’ll leave it here for now.