House of Lords dy speaker resigns over drug scandal
London:
UK's deputy speaker in the upper house of the Parliament resigned on Sunday after he was allegedly pictured snorting cocaine with two prostitutes.
Lord John Sewel, a deputy speaker who oversees standards in the House of Lords, resigned amid claims in The Sun he took the Class A drug at a sex party . The House of Lords authorities immediately referred his case to the police and dubbed the reports as “shocking and unacceptable“.
Sewel, 69, formerly a Labour peer and ally of former prime minister Tony Blair, was said to have been caught on video telling the prostitutes that he wanted to “be led astray“.
Lord speaker Baroness Frances D'Souza issued a strongly-worded statement: “Today's revelations about the behaviour of Lord Sewel are both shocking and unacceptable. Lord Sewel has this morning resigned as Chairman of Committees.“
“The House of Lords will continue to uphold standards in public life and will not tolerate departure from these standards,“ D'Souza said.
“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.“
A 22-year-old IndoCanadian man has been missing for over 20 days and police believe he may have been brutally killed and his body encased in concrete slab and buried somewhere in the Niagara region in southern Ontario.
Shawn Kapadia from Mississauga may have been killed on July 5 and investigators believe his body was moved from Toronto to a home on O'Reilly's Road South in Ontario.
He was reported missing by his parents to police on July 10.A backhoe was seen at the Wainfleet home and later observed leaving with a large chunk of concrete in its front bucket. The John Deere backhoe sought in connection to the disappearance and believed homicide of Kapadia was found in Niagara Falls on Thursday . At a news conference detective Dave Dickinson said investigators believe Kapadia was murdered at a home on Sunday , July 5 -the day he was last seen alive.
Police believe after his murder, Kapadia's body was moved to the Niagara region, where they have been looking for a stolen or borrowed John Deere backhoe that may have been used to dispose of his body . Police have not been able to locate the concrete slab, and are asking for the public's help.
Forensics officers spent over 24 hours searching the Wainfleet home. Dickinson said there have been no arrests so far, though he said the case is progressing quickly.
