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Roundup: British peer faces police investigation in scandal over drugs

Xinhua, July 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

British life peer John Sewel is facing police investigation over claims that he took drugs with two escorts at his London apartment.

Sewel is under increasing pressure to resign completely from the House of Lords after the Sun newspaper published a series of videos and pictures showing the life peer snorting cocaine with two call girls at his London flat.

He was also pictured making disparaging remarks about British Prime Minister David Cameron, London Mayor Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister Tony Blair and a number of other politicians.

In the video footage, Sewel was also captured wearing an orange bra and leather jacket while puffing on a cigarette.

The Sun published the reports on Sunday and Monday as an exclusive by three of its journalists, but it remains unclear how the newspaper obtained the videos and the photos.

The peer, who has already resigned as the House of Lords' deputy speaker and Chairman of Committees, is facing calls to quit the upper house of the parliament altogether.

Commenting on the revelations on Monday, Prime Minister David Cameron said these were "very serious allegations."

"I think it's right he has stood down from his committee posts and I'm sure further questions will be asked about whether it is appropriate to have someone legislating and acting in the House of Lords, if they have genuinely behaved in this way," Cameron said during a trip to the Southeast Asia.

"It's still going to take some time I suspect to get to the full truth," he added.

Lord Speaker Frances Gertrude Claire D'Souza said the revelations about Sewel's behavior are "both shocking and unacceptable."

"These serious allegations will be referred to the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards and the Metropolitan Police for investigation as a matter of urgency," she said.

D'Souza has written to both the House of Lords Commissioner for Standards and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner requesting that they investigate the allegations.

"Lord Sewel as Chairman of Committees chaired the Committee for Privileges and Conduct, which recommends to the House the sanction to be imposed when a Member is in breach of the Code of Conduct," she wrote in the letter to the Lords Commissioner for Standards.

"His alleged conduct and remarks raise questions as to whether he has failed to act on his 'personal honor'...and failed to adhere to the seven principles of public life," she noted.

Under Britain's new laws which Sewel helped to introduce earlier this year, he might be expelled from the House of Lords either temporarily or permanently.

Some lawmakers have urged Sewel to resign from the Lords voluntarily before he was expelled.

"The No. 2 person in the House of Lords has got himself into these problems...He's got no choice but to resign from the House of Lords," said John Mann, a member of the House of Commons.

Sewel, 69, was made a life peer in 1996. He served as a junior minister under Tony Blair's government. Endit