Maria Fernandes, the wife of the scandal-hit Labour MP Keith Vaz, has said she will stand by her husband after he begged for her forgiveness and promised it would “never happen again”.
She told The Mail on Sunday: “It was a terrible shock and I am still processing it. Keith is not a bad person, he's just done a terrible thing. It's absolutely terrible because it's affected all of us, because it's affected the kids. But he's a good person, a good father, he's been a good husband and nine-tenths of the time he's got the things right. This time he's fallen... badly.”
The mother-of-two said she never suspected he was sexually attracted to men, but that what hurt was the betrayal. “I've decided to forgive him. That's different to forgiving him right now. If I don't forgive him eventually, it is going to tear me up. It's going to destroy me and I don't want that.”
The couple have a 21-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter.
Maria said she was also worried about Vaz. “He wanted to kill himself twice – once as Europe minister (when he was caught up in a scandal over passports) – and again now. He just wanted to die.”
Meanwhile, the scandal involving the disgraced MP is getting murkier with every passing day as police are considering new allegations of potential abuse of office and misconduct against the beleaguered Leicester lawmaker.
Vaz has now been accused of trying to stop a council evicting a brothel owner in Leicester 25 years ago. Detectives have interviewed witnesses in this regard.
However, Leicestershire police have refused to comment on whether the embattled MP was under investigation.
Vaz quit as chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee last week after he was caught with two gay escorts at a flat he owns in Edgware, north-west London. A Sunday Mirror report said he paid for the services of male sex workers.
However, Scotland Yard has confirmed it is considering whether he committed any offences in his involvement with two male prostitutes in London. He is not under formal investigation but police said they would “assess and identify what criminal offences – if any – may have been committed”.
In the undercover footage, revealed in the Sunday Mirror, Vaz was seen having a conversation with one of the male escorts in which the MP said he did not want to use cocaine himself, but indicated he would be willing to pay for it for use by another prostitute at a later date.
Inquiries about his conduct in Leicester pre-date those revelations and involve claims he may have abused his public office when he attempted to overturn the 1991 eviction of a council tenant for unpaid rent.
The tenant, Nigel Philpot-Jones, was suspected of running a brothel and providing “the services of young men for other men”, according to a witness statement seen by the Sunday Times.
Also, it has been alleged that Vaz had offered a job as a driver to one of the male prostitutes he was filmed with. The unnamed man told the Sunday Mirror: “He texted me and said he wanted someone to work as a driver for three days at the weekend, then for any other days for a charity. I was interested in taking the job. I was hoping the job would go through and I'd earn good, genuine money.”
Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen wrote to police saying: “The report and associated video suggest a conspiracy to supply a controlled substance.”
Scotland Yard said that it would examine whether Vaz had committed any criminal offences.
Interestingly, according to the Daily Telegraph, “It is not clear what laws, if any, Vaz is alleged to have broken. Prostitution in itself is legal in the UK while his offer to pay for cocaine that was never bought or consumed seems a long way from a criminal offence.”
