Labour MP Kate Osamor ordered to apologise over tirade at journalist asking about son’s drug case

The former Shadow International Development Secreatary Kate Osamor will have to say sorry to the House of Commons
Getty Images
Ellena Cruse19 March 2020

An MP has been ordered to apologise after threatening to smash a reporter's face with a “f****** bat” and using Commons paper for a character reference in her son’s drug case.

The Commons Committee on Standards found Labour's Kate Osamor had made numerous breaches of the MP's code of conduct and ordered her to apologise to the House in a letter.

She avoided harsher punishment for reasons including the committee finding the “extreme” language she hurled at the reporter in front of police officers had caused him to show no “fear or distress”.

The former shadow cabinet minister asked a judge for a reprieve for her 29-year-old son Ishmael Osamor on Commons headed notepaper after he was caught with £2,500 worth of drugs at Bestival in 2018, even though she publicly denied knowing about the hearing.

Kate Osamor apologised for breeching MP code
UK PARLIAMENT/AFP via Getty Imag

The commissioner concluded: “Ms Osamor’s actions in writing to the court using House-provided stationery, in speaking as she did to the journalist, and in omitting to reply to correspondence, separately and together, give fuel to the belief that members are able and willing to use the privileges of office to benefit their own personal interests, and to attempt to set themselves above the rules that apply to others."

There was nothing wrong with her writing a character reference, the commissioner said, but the use of Commons paper “wrongly suggested that her plea carried the authority of the House”.

A month after writing the letter, Ms Osamor called Metropolitan Police, telling officers a journalist was banging on her door and intimidating her and her family.

Police told her they were wearing a body-worn video camera which caught the following exchange.

The MP with her party leader Jeremy Corbyn
AFP via Getty Images

“Don’t knock my f****** door. I should have come down here with a f****** bat and smashed your face open,” she told the journalist.

A short while later she said she did not in fact have a bat and that she was not advocating violence, according to the report.

“The police officer’s written notes recorded that the journalist showed no signs of alarm, fear or distress,” it added.

The commissioner also noted police records from another night saying she admitted throwing a cup of water at someone when losing her temper in December 2018.

She accepted her behaviour had fallen foul of accepted standards, but explained she had “finally snapped” after a month of what she “felt to be media harassment”.

“I felt that I was the target of a witch-hunt, and that race and class were factors. Most of all, I was deeply upset and angry about the targeting of my son,” she added in written evidence.

Ms Osamor tweeted a statement saying she was “delighted to draw a line under this matter” with the committee accepting her apology on Thursday.

She said a “media campaign” had taken a “big toll” on her family and mental health and said she was “humbled” to have been re-elected by her constituents in Edmonton.

“I’ve learned from my mistakes and am looking forward to getting on with standing up for Edmonton and holding the Government to account,” she added.

Ms Osamor had tried to keep her letter away from the public domain after previously claiming she had not even known about her son's legal troubles until after his sentencing.

But Judge Stephen Climie said in January 2019 that the two-page letter should be made public following a challenge by the Evening Standard and other media outlets.

In the letter she wrote she was "shaken" by her son's drugs conviction, and urged Judge Climie not to tear "my family apart” by sending him to prison.

"I regret the fact that this letter is necessary. I am shaken by how difficult this letter is for me to write", she said.

"What keeps me believing in him and loving him is the fact that he is a good person that came from a good home.

"I wish more than anything that you, the man who decides his fate, could know him like I do."

Her son, who was a Haringey councillor and helped in her Parliamentary office, was caught with cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, and cannabis at Bestival in Dorset in 2018.

Ms Osamor claimed she didn't know details of her son's court case until after sentencing however this could not have been true when it emerged that she had written one of five reference letters for her son.

Judge Climie said her correspondence had played a "significant" part in his decision to impose a community service order instead of prison.

Mr Osamor said he had been holding the drugs for his friends when he was stopped by festival security.

He was sentenced to 200 hours of community service after admitting possession with intent to supply the drugs.

In his letter to the court, Mr Osamor said he has "truly learnt my lesson" and vowed to become an anti-drugs campaigner.

He resigned from his cabinet post on Haringey Council and then quit his seat entirely in the wake of publicity of his criminal case.

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