Independent
Former Tory MP Neil Parish has claimed police took away his shotguns ‘for his own safety’ after he was forced to resign in disgrace.
Mr Parish, who previously represented Tiverton and Honiton, admitted in April he had watched pornography on his phone in Parliament in what he described as a “moment of madness”.
He initially claimed he was ‘looking for tractors’ online when he found the illicit material and later admitted to accessing the adult material deliberately.
When Mr Parish eventually quit as an MP on April 30, he triggered a by-election that was won by the Liberal Democrats on June 23.
Speaking to LBC’s Swarbrick On Sunday about the aftermath of the scandal, he said: “The police very kindly and rightly took away – because I am a farmer you see I’ve got shotguns – so they took those away from me.”
When asked why, he replied: “Because when you have blown up your parliamentary career for 12 years, you are not feeling in the best place, and they took them away for my own safety, not that I was going to shoot anybody else, in case I shot myself.
“I did say to them in a moment of black humour, ‘I am a very bad shot, I will probably miss’, but they didn’t naturally see the joke at the time, or nor was it very funny.”
Mr Parish claimed he received a number of death threats following the scandal and complained of constant cameras outside his house.
“It’s not easy,” he said, “And when you go to the chief whip and ask for help, you expect it. You are thrown over the side of a ship, and then you are left to drown.
“And that’s how it works and fine, but I saw Mark Spencer on the podcast, Telegraph podcast, saying how caring they all were. I need to put it out on record, they are not…
