County MP in police search action
Thursday 22nd January 2009, 2:15PM GMT.
Commons Speaker Michael Martin today ordered changes to the way police operate at Westminster after an angry protest by Shrewsbury Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski.
Mr Kawczynski called for an inquiry last night over the conduct of officers investigating threatening letters which had been sent to MPs and Schools Secretary Ed Balls. The letters had a Shrewsbury postcode.
The Tory MP reluctantly handed over a letter to police last night after being told by a plain clothes officer that she could seize it if he failed to co-operate.
Police had gone to the MP’s office after one of his researchers had agreed to check whether he recognised the handwriting on one of the suspect letters, which contained a white powder which turned out to be flour.
Another assistant in the office thought she did recognise the writing, and produced a letter which the police demanded to take away with them.
The researcher refused to hand over the letter without the MP’s permission, and rushed off to get a message to his boss.
After returning to his office and handing over the letter, Mr Kawczynski made a complaint to the Deputy Speaker, Sir Michael Lord.
He said police wanted to see handwriting samples from people who had written to him, and had demanded to see the correspondence.
“I was extremely appalled that the officer can behave in this way, to enter a Member of Parliament’s office with no warrant and to demand constituency correspondence,” he said.
Mr Martin told MPs: “While I accept that the police officer acted with good intentions, I have instructed that any officer assigned to duties in this House must advise the Serjeant at Arms of any intention to seek assistance from a Member of his staff in his office.
“The Serjeant at Arms will in turn approach the Member before the police take further action.”
The Metropolitan Police spokesman said: “A piece of correspondence matching handwriting of those under investigation was removed from the office after permission was granted by the MP.”
By London Editor John Hipwood
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whos telling porkies then?.
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I’ve become used to Jacqui Smith, Jack Straw and their cronies creating laws that have gradually eroded our liberties, but always assumed that I could write letters to my MP without them being divulged to all and sundry.
A shame to hear, then, that someone who I thought was a brave constituency champion, a little bit edgy and literally larger than life is in fact a small man, easily intimidated by an agent of the state.
If you were the person whose letter was meekly handed over to the police officer without even any attempt by Daniel Kawczynski to refuse under constituency privilege, you should feel indignant.
People may feel that the case itself being investigated is justified because there was some white powder in another envelope. And I would tend to agree. But that’s not an excuse for an MP to hand over his correspondence on the off-chance that the hand-writing in one of the letters matched that of the flour letter.
What about the time when you may want to write to your MP about a problem that you’ve had with the police or you want to make known a situation about another person where you’ve so far met a brick wall? Would you really write your letter if you believed that the recipient would divulge the contents without any coercion to do so.
It was bad enough that all the good citizens of the Ashford area in Kent, who wrote to their MP, Damian Green, on matters that they regarded to be between him and them only, have had their private issues pored over by teams of policemen on the search for a Home Office mole, but for Mr. Kawczynski to simply hand over something that was merely politely requested, well, that takes the biscuit.
Yes, Mr. Kawczynski, you should be embarrassed and eternally shameful. You WERE weak and you now remain so in my eyes. No use blaming this on Jacqui Smith; you invited the officer in and you handed the item over without any legal need to.
No more letters from me to you – I’ll air all my views in this column from now on – I assume that if the police were interested to know who it was who’d written a critical point about them in the Shropshire Star postings, the management would respect privacy and at least demand a warrant before handing over my e-mail address to them – the only occasion when they would have to share those details.
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its right that he should co-operate with the police, from the sounds of it, potential anthrax scare, this is a VERY serious police matter, potentially a terrorist threat to another MP.
Lets not get hung up on civil liberties and pariliamentary tradition, the police and mr k did the right thing in investigating this letter
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So – he INVITED the police in, HANDED OVER something now makes some big thing about how awful for the police to do something like this is..!
“Stupid boy” is a quote that comes to mind here.
Please Daniel, go and do penance for your stupidity by helping out at a homeless peoples shelter instead of this auditioning for Big Brother – well, that’s what this looks like.
Ramping up the self-publicity eh? yes, Big Brother next..
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The poster on here “Devilschair” has accurately summed this up.
I am amaze by the calibre of our elected members of Parliment and now see why the country is in such a state!
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If its a genuine investigation MP’s should assist and should be investigated when needed. They are not above the law or will they try and change that now.
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We must have the most useless group of MP’s and dismal Government from top to bottom in our history.
We deserve so much better!
Lying, incompetent and devoid of morals.
They would not get work in the real world!
Utter contempt for all of them!
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Stupid boy indeed!
If the police did make an appointment and Mr Kawczynski offered the package of his own free will I really cannot see how he is going to dig himself out of this one?
This looks to me as if Mr Kawczynski is embarassed that he has effectively ‘Shopped’ his constituent and has tried to pull a ‘Damian Green’ to cover himself, Unfortunately all the facts seem to be against Mr Kawczynski.
Its time for the residents of Shrewsbury to show their embarrassment for an MP that his number is up. I see the end of a political career on the horizon, and not before time!
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Another self-publicity stunt I feel.
No news here…
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Kawczynski is an idiot. We’ve known for a long time that he’ll hop on whatever bandwagon comes along (e.g. opposing a £60m investment in Shrewsbury’s post-16 education facilities). Now we know that he doesn’t even understand basic elements of the law of the land such as the need for a warrant! How dare he complain to the Deputy Speaker about the police’s actions: he gave the police the material concerned, voluntarily!
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So now the speaker of the House has publically rebuked Daniel for not having his facts right and rushing to make a judgement. The speaker also confirmed the police did not require a search warrant, and all he has done is make unfounded allegations that reflect badly on professional people doing a decent job of work.
What a silly, silly episode.
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We can but hope it’s the end of his career – the sooner the better.
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I’m glad that its the same for everyone. If the Police gave warning every time they investigated a crime, then evidence would be in very short supply. Mr Kawczynski now knows what this Government has done by making everyone a potential criminal. Good job he hadn’t put the wrong litter in the bin.
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What a strange boy! The police are investigating menacing letters to MPs, he has a letter which can help identify the offender, as a citzen he has a duty to assist the investigation. The policewoman visits his office by appointment, asks to take possession of the letter as evidence, he agrees. Then he rushes off like a hysterical, attention-seeking schoolgirl screeching about searches and warrants which had no relevance whatsoever to what took place. God help the constituents who are represented by this clown.
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why should he hide evidence from the police just because of ”parliamentary privelege”
all doctors, lawyers, press etc have some right to protect sources BUT when the matter becomes criminal this is over rided by the need to help the police do justice
Of course mr kawczynski did the right thing, you cannot expect a man in his position to lie to the police or hinder the passage of justice
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Mr K needs to acquaint himself with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) before whingeing to the media.
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no one is above the law, the police have every right to go into his office and look at the evidence in this letter, and the mp has every right to hand it over and co-operate with the investigation
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This is just the latest example from this MP who is a disgrace to Shrewsbury and Atcham (though not resident here!). His self-publicity is appalling and demonstrates that his judgement is at best suspect and his appreciation of truth and its manipulation less than expected from public servants. He has already been “found out” in his allegations about opponents in Shrewsbury where twice his version of events has been found incorrect by 3 Police investigations demanded by his victims. His claim about the Shrewsbury sign on the M6 is laughable it was campaign initiated by Mike Ion and publicised by the Shrewsbury Chronicle. We cannot trust him.
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the poor MP, what a shame, well, if he isn’t hiding anything then co-operate, if he is hiding something, then cough it up. just because he is an MP doesnt make him any better, if the police wanted some paperwork from me, I will let them have it, if I didn’t, I would get arrested for withholding information, he is a member of public and should be treated the same. (I’m not in trouble with the law, really).
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it is right that the police went in to this its very serious to write such letters
im not suprised the schools secretary gets angry letters from salop mind as they are closing lots of rural primaries here after all
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Bluemoon, you must be very young or very forgetful.
I unfortunately am not very young or very forgetful, I remember the THATCHER years. And guess what? Those years are coming home to roost now aren’t they!
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people on here seem to be making cheap political shots (such as our mps apposition to colocation more didnt want it than did freddie)
Neither was our mp on this ocasion obstructing any one, in a police state where civil liberties are erroded the police march in where ever they wish on the say so of a whisper.All our mp wanted to know why was he expected to hand over private correspondence and if not convinced should not have handed it over in my book.
Best mp shrewsbury and atcham have ever had in my book listens to all his constituance unlike many mps.
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As Mr J tells us that if the police wanted some paperwork from him, he’d simply hand it over, no questions asked, I do hope that he isn’t a person who regularly receives confidential correspondence like a doctor, solicitor, banker, council employee MP or anyone else to whom the public may send information that they regard confidential and not the business of the police unless they have a search warrant issued by legal authority.
Do none of you with similar views not understand that the police are not saints? The reason for warrants is to protect us all from unlawful intrusion. If the case they are investigating is serious enough, the warrant will be issued. The only paperwork that you should hand over without a warrant is paperwork that belongs to you.
As an extreme example, if you had a next door neighbour who is a police officer and he was interested in knowing how much you earn, do you really think that your employer should hand over your salary details just because a policeman asks for them?
No Mr J and others, private matters should remain private matters, especially when you write to your MP about them, (except Mr. Kawczynski naturally), unless and until the LAW, not a police officer, decides otherwise and issues a warrant to allow the police to acquire the evidence properly.
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We really know how to pick em in Shrewsbury! Derek Conway, Paul Marsden and now Daniel Kawczynski! and before them Holt who only ever stood up in the house to moan about the canteen food :-(
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yes dk has been a bit of a plonker over this, and although i do not share his politics, the number of times i see him on his feet prodding ministers over matters shropshire, makes me feel he is a good constituency mp.
he is continually keeping the town of shrewsbury mentioned in parliament. but in this case please admit you were wrong!
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i agree with andrew finch, just to see him mentioning the county town and county and its problems regularly in parliament is refreshing. any one can make cheap comments about the government or their mp, take it fom me as a non tory, he appears to be a good local mp.
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Mr Kawczynski… don’t you think an enquiry will be waste of tax payers money? BECAUSE I DO!
Daniel – you won’t be getting the vote next time will you?
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Mr Kawczynski has made himself look very silly over this issue.If the facts on here are to be believed, then he is quite obviously only after some cheap publicity.On this occaison he has embarressed both him self and Shrewsbury and Atcham. In reply to Devon Salopian, We do often hear about Mr Kawczynski raising local issues, but we never hear of him actually doing something, and changing anything. Talk is easy and cheap. Results or lack of them will define him as an MP..
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Codsallman
Not that old chestnut!
Still blame Thatcher, sad and deluded!
Wait and see what Broon reaps!
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MPs are not above the Law. This is a serious offence which required investigating. Just because you are an MP, you shouldn’t expect special treatment. The letter was handed over and seized in accordance with the law to assist in the investigation of a serious offence. No warrant needed.
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Right Said Fred:- You said,
“Now we know that he doesn’t even understand basic elements of the law of the land such as the need for a warrant! How dare he complain to the Deputy Speaker about the police’s actions: he gave the police the material concerned, voluntarily!”
Neither do you by the sound of things, under the circumstances as known and also as you outline, a warrant was not necssary.
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Smallman – the police officer was not there out of personal interest in neighbourly wage comparisons; the officer was invesigating quite a worrying crime – if you received a letter implying a threat I’m sure you would expect your MP to assist if in a position to do so. Your attempt at a human rights argument is why we are in the current mess we are in today.
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diane this is a free country not a police state.
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Quite right Diane.
As a staunch Tory supporter,I must admit, I have long had my doubts about this man and his performance in the Commons over this matter when addressing the Speaker finished him for me. He came across as an opportunist, a very juvenile one at that, playing the injured innocent who had been treated disgracefully by the oppressive Police who had ridden roughshod over his illustrious position as an MP. The cliche’, “he doth protesteth to much” comes readily to mind. He will not be getting my vote until he is more mature, able to speak with some authority and conviction and not act up to the gallery. In short he is a bit of a “clown” but to my knowledge, that makes at least two of them in the Commons.
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look our MP is ok you lot, its the labour police statte thats the problem, we will take them apart when we get in, get rid of all police in the house I say, we must be free, we must get rid of labour and we must keep shrewsbury as a conservative town, anyway im glad mr balls is getting threatened, he’s a socialist and bad at his job
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storm in a tea cup
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that Labour lot are more corrupt than us
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lol
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Stuart said: “Neither do you [understand the law of the land] by the sound of things, under the circumstances as known and also as you outline, a warrant was not necssary.”
Read what I wrote not what you wish to see! I didn’t say that a warrant was required. What I observed was that our MP asserted to the House that one was, i.e. he doesn’t know the law of the land.
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