- Lord Sewel, 69, filmed snorting cocaine with prostitutes at his London flat
- Video shows him snorting a white substance with rolled-up £5 bank note
- Married peer responsible for 'overseeing standards' in the House of Lords
- He has now quit deputy speaker role as police investigate sordid footage
Lord Sewel, 69, was reported to the police and quit as deputy speaker of the Lords after the video emerged.
Until yesterday he chaired a committee on the conduct of peers and has said: ‘The actions of a few damage our reputation. Scandals make good headlines.’
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Drug lord: Sewel is secretly filmed snorting a line of cocaine at his Westminster flat with £200-a-night call girls
Depraved: His wedding ring visible on his left hand, Sewel uses a rolled £5 note to snort up the white powder
Outraged watchdogs and politicians say the married father of four should be booted out of Parliament. New laws brought in on July 16 now allow peers to expel colleagues for misconduct.
Obtained by a Sunday newspaper, the video shows John Buttifant Sewel – a minister under Tony Blair – romping with two women at his rent-protected flat near Parliament.
He snorted cocaine from one of the prostitutes’ breasts after turning a photo of his wife face down on a desk. The women were paid £200 each.
Scotland Yard is under pressure to investigate the video, arrest the shamed peer and search his apartment. Cocaine possession attracts a maximum sentence of seven years.
Yesterday morning Sewel resigned as chairman of the privileges and conduct committee and as deputy speaker. The roles gave him a salary of £84,500 and a tax-free annual housing allowance of £36,000He was also a British delegate to Nato’s parliamentary assembly – a situation that now raises security fears. And in the 800-strong House of Lords, he has been involved in passing legislation on sexual offences acts, brothel-keeping and prostitution.
Alistair Graham, former head of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said Sewel’s behaviour was staggering and he could have no ‘credibility with the public as a legislator’.
‘You can argue that there are too many peers in the House of Lords already, so standing down would be in the public interest in two ways,’ he said.
‘He should consider stepping down because the public have got to have trust in the people who are legislating on their behalf. How can they have trust in someone who is alleged to have broken the law?
Baron Sewel, who has two children and two more step-children, was made a minister by Mr Blair in 1997
During the footage, Sewell also snorted a white substance off the breasts of the call girls, after discussing on camera that the trio could take 'coke' (pictured). He also told the prostitutes: 'I just want to be led astray'
He asked the girls if they wanted to try the 'big one' and then described it as 'Coca-Cola — forget the Cola'
Baron Sewel will step down from his roles as Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees at the House of Lords following the publication of the 45-minute video, in which he even calls his own behaviour 'disgusting'
‘It is difficult to have trust in somebody who has had such a conflict between his role as the chairman of the conduct committee and his personal behaviour.
'As an ordinary member of the House of Lords, he will be entitled to a basic subsistence allowance of £300 a day. The public will be appalled that given his personal behaviour as deputy speaker, he should continue to receive public funds.’
Kevin Barron, a Labour MP and chairman of the Commons committee on standards, said: ‘I welcome his decision to resign from his committee. Under the circumstances, he’s hardly in a position to sit in judgment on people.’
Asked whether he should consider resigning his Lords seat, Mr Barron replied: ‘It does look bad. It’s a matter for the individual but I think maybe he should consider that.’
Former anti-sleaze MP Martin Bell said: ‘His position in the House of Lords is untenable.’
John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, said: ‘He should immediately retire and never be seen in the Lords again. Public respect for Parliament couldn’t be any lower as it is.
‘If he doesn’t resign, his own committee will have no choice but to suspend him. He’ll end up in front of his own committee, which is absurd.
‘He has been a real barrier to transparency. His committee refuses to act on virtually anything, and notoriously so.’
The Lords code maintains that members must ‘always act on their personal honour’. Sewel was elected chairman of committees in 2012, and he also served as chairman of the conduct committee. In that job he drew up a code of conduct that insists on ‘selflessness, integrity, accountability, openness, honest and leadership’.
Baroness D’Souza, the Lords Speaker, branded his behaviour ‘shocking and unacceptable’ and said she would be calling in Scotland Yard.
Police sources indicated they would assess the evidence but pointed out that drug-taking allegations were notoriously difficult to prove when there is only video evidence.
The peer was caught on the film, which was given to the Sun on Sunday, snorting lines of white powder – believed to be cocaine. He is also heard complaining that he struggles to afford the £1,000 a month rent on his flat.
He is asked whether he receives expenses, and suggests that he gets a flat-rate allowance of £200 a day. In fact, the allowance for Lords is £300 a day, and did not apply to Sewel as he was a salaried member. He may have been talking about the tax-free officeholder’s allowance, which is worth £36,000 a year. He was entitled to this payment, which covers housing costs, because he had declared his main residence to be in Aberdeenshire.
Backbench peers are allowed to charge £300 a day in attendance allowance – letting them to charge the taxpayer up to £43,000 a year.
Sewel was made a life peer by Mr Blair and helped push through an important convention relating to Scottish devolution. He is now non affiliated.
Before the new legislation of July 16, lords could only expel colleagues sentenced to more than a year in jail – or impose a suspension for the remainder of the parliamentary term.
But the new powers means suspensions can be imposed for any period and, for the first time, the upper house can boot out peers at will.
I just want to be led astray, Labour Lord begged his £200-a-night prostitutes
Hunched over a table with a rolled banknote stuffed up his nose, these pictures show Lord Sewel snorting a line of cocaine during an orgy with a pair of £200-a-night call girls.
The photos – from film secretly taken by the prostitutes at his flat near Parliament – lay bare the peer’s depravity.
The sequence begins with Sewel removing a blue packet of white powder from inside a drinks bottle.
The substance – believed to be the Class A drug cocaine – is then cut into neat lines on a table littered with wine glasses and cigarettes.
Caught on camera: Hunched over a table with a rolled banknote stuffed up his nose, these pictures show Lord Sewel snorting a line of cocaine during an orgy with a pair of £200-a-night call girls at his Westminster flat
Drugs: Lord Sewel, 69, removes a packet of white powder believed to be cocaine from a drinks bottle
Dissolute: He unwraps the blue packet, telling the call girls that it is ‘not lunch’, before revealing the substance
Wearing his wedding ring and spectacles, the 69-year-old peer then bends forward and inhales deeply. ‘There we are,’ he says, leaning back and laying his £5 note back on the table.
The married father of four, is also seen downing champagne and vodka before snorting another line from one of the women’s breasts. Both call girls are 45 years his junior.
The two prostitutes handed their 45-minute footage to the Sun on Sunday and it is now at the centre of a police investigation.
A further extraordinary picture was published by the newspaper today, showing Sewel wearing the orange bra and leather jacket of one of the prostitutes.
His sex party kicked off at 10pm last Wednesday when, wearing just a towel, he answered the door of his studio flat in Pimlico, to the two women.
‘Bloody hell I’d given up. S***. Bloody hell you’re late,’ he says, before smacking one of them on the bottom and declaring: ‘Happy days are here again.’
Inside the sparsely furnished studio apartment at the notorious Dolphin Square complex, the trio can been seen sitting round a table smoking and drinking.
In the background is an old-fashioned television, DVD player and a modest, single day bed.
When one of the women asks him ‘How bad do you want to be tonight then?’ Sewel replies: ‘I just want to be led astray’ before turning a framed photo of his wife, Jennifer, 54, face down on a table.
He allegedly snorts three lines of cocaine even though he claims to be ‘taking it easy’ because of a blood test the next day.
Sex party: The video was filmed in Nelson House in Dolphin Square, which lies in the shadow of Westminster
Sewel begins the night by saying: ‘What shows up in blood tests? I can’t do substances because it can kill me.’ One of the girls says: ‘You were really naughty the other night. You really, really were.’ He responds: ‘I know.’
As the three chat in his studio, Sewel can be heard asking: ‘What about trying the big one?’ One of the girls replies: ‘What’s the big one?’
Sewel, who at this point is wearing an open-collar shirt and beige trousers, says: ‘Um, it comes in a can and it’s got, has it got Pepsi?
‘No, it’s not Pepsi, it’s another word rather than Pepsi cola. It’s Coca-Cola – forget the Cola.’ This is an obvious reference to the slang term for cocaine, ‘coke’. ‘So you want to get some coke?,’ one of the women asks. ‘Well, I mean, if people would enjoy a little,’ he replies, gesturing and wandering around the room.
He can then be seen sitting down at the table and pulling out a small blue package containing white powder from the top of a soft drinks bottle. A cigarette in hand, he unwraps the package while moaning about receiving only a £200-a-day allowance for attending the House of Lords.
One of the call girls then cuts the powder into neat lines and he says: ‘I’ll only have the smallest’ before launching into a rant about how he usually takes his drugs with a £10 banknote.
‘Have you ever noticed before, when this has occurred previously, I have provided usually a ten pound note?’ he asks. ‘It’s rolled up and so in the morning at least I’ve got enough to buy me some breakfast. The rolled-up note disappears, it goes.’
When one of the women asks if he is accusing them of theft, Sewel replies: ‘Yes.’
One of the prostitutes then calls his line ‘ridiculously big’ but Sewel replies ‘I’ll do that.’ He can then be seen, hunched over a dining table with a rolled-up £5 note in his left hand – his wedding ring on display – sniffing the white powder up his left nostril.
Sewel, who is Chairman of the Privileges and Conduct committee, announced the House of Lords' (file photo) new powers to expel Lords if they breached the code of conduct. He may now be expelled under his own rules
‘There we are’ he says afterwards, leaning back in his chair. In a shocking racist outburst, Sewel, who has two children and two stepchildren, then starts moaning that he does not have any ‘nice little young Asian’ women at the party. ‘They sort of look innocent but you know they’re whores,’ he says before laughing and adding: ‘That’s a really nice combination isn’t it?’
‘Oh, we could do with some nice little young Asian lady tonight I would’ve thought. But never mind.’
One of the women asks the peer: ‘What is your deal with the Asian ladies? What do you like about them?’ He replies: ‘Well, I don’t know. As I go around London on the Tube from time to time, I think that they’re slim. Many of them are quite attractive I thought. Not that I’ve ever sort of dabbled.’
He then appears to snort another line off the table before stripping off and parading around the small flat. Minutes later, he is seen lying naked on the bed and calls one of the women over. He then pulls down her top and snorts another line off her breast before stroking and pawing at both women. The video shows Sewel sitting back with the rolled-up banknote still up his nostril.
He pays one of the women £200 in cash. Still pictures from the footage show him sitting topless at the table writing out a £200 cheque to the other woman.
EX-BLAIR CRONY WHO MARRIED THREE TIMES: THE LIFE OF LORD SEWEL
Baron Sewel insisted on turning a framed photo of his wife face-down during his sex games with two call girls, it is alleged.
The thrice-married peer, 69, also kept his wedding ring on while snorting drugs during sex sessions at the London flat he jointly leases with his third wife, Jennifer, aged 54.
The couple, who live in Aberdeen, married in 2005. A former civil servant, Lady Sewel is now a director at Aberdeen University.
Her bespectacled husband has seemingly enjoyed a colourful love life.
Baron John Sewel (right), who has been married three times, apparently insisted on turning a framed photograph of his third wife Lady Jennifer (left) face-down before engaging in the drug-fuelled sex romp
He married his first wife, Rosemary Langeland, now 69, in Malvern, Worcestershire, in 1968, and the couple went on to have two children, Thomas, 38, and Kate, 36. In 1988, Sewel married second wife Leonora Harding, 70, a clinical psychologist, in Aberdeen.
He lives with his third wife at a £1.2million home in the town of Banchory, 18 miles west of Aberdeen.
His wife’s two children from a previous marriage appear to have taken Sewel’s name. A woman who answered the door at the Banchory house yesterday said the couple were in London.
Until yesterday’s revelations, Lord Sewel was a respected academic and politician instrumental in helping Tony Blair push through Scottish devolution. In 1997 the then prime minister made him a Labour minister for Scotland to help draft plans for the new Scottish Parliament.
This is how he gave his name to so-called Sewel Motions, which dictate that the national Parliament cannot pass laws affecting Scotland without the Scottish government’s agreement.
After guiding the Scotland Act through he failed to win a seat in the Scottish parliament. He was dropped from government and left to languish in the House of Lords.
In an interview he once joked that even his mother wanted him to get a ‘proper job’. ‘I’ve been an academic and a politician all my life. But even when I became a lord my mum used to say, “Why can’t you get a proper job?” ’
Family home: Sewel lives with his third wife at this £1.2million house in Banchory, 18 miles west of Aberdeen
In 2012 he was made chairman of committees, responsible for overseeing standards of behaviour among peers.
He recently announced new powers to expel peers if they misbehave. Ironically, these same rules could now be used to banish him. Writing about these changes on the Huffington Post website this month, he said; ‘The actions of a few damage our reputation. Scandals make good headlines.
‘All members now sign a declaration to obey the code and the seven principles of public life. The requirement that members must always act on their personal honour has been reinforced.
‘No system of regulation can be perfect, but the House of Lords has come a long way since 2010 in improving its regulation of its members and punishing the small number who misbehave.
Today’s new sanctions strengthen the regime further.’ The peer was born John Buttifant Sewel in Hackney, East London, in 1946. His parents, Leonard and Hilda, were social workers.
He studied politics and sociology at Durham University and carried out research at Swansea University before joining Aberdeen University as a professor.
He became involved with the local Labour Party and was on Aberdeen District Council for ten years from 1974, three as Labour leader.
He went on to become vice principal and dean of the faculty of social sciences and law at Aberdeen University and was made a Labour peer in 1995.
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