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Minister sued by veteran for 'not helping enough'
Joe Murphy, Political Editor04.02.09
A London MP has become embroiled in a legal row with an elderly ex-soldier who accuses her of "laziness".
Health Minister Ann Keen is thought to be the first MP to be sued for damages by a constituent, who is complaining that she did not do enough to help him. The case has outraged fellow MPs, who say the courts should not get involved in deciding how an MP does his or her job.
John Taylor, 84, a Second World War veteran from Hounslow, claims he has deluged Mrs Keen with more than 100 letters demanding support to obtain compensation for a miscarriage of justice 47 years ago.
The MP for Brentford and Isleworth insists she did try to help him by making representations on his behalf and acknowledged all his letters. But in the end she decided to draw a line unless his solicitors could suggest anything else she could do.
Mr Taylor spent three years in prison after being wrongly convicted of stealing £17 in 1962, the Daily Mail reported. He told the newspaper he was suing because Mrs Keen did not do enough to help him get compensation for a wrongful conviction, saying: "She is a disastrous and lazy politician who has failed to carry out her job."
The newspaper said Brentford county court had awarded him £15,000 in December when he brought a case that was not contested by Mrs Keen. But the court reportedly withdrew its judgment after she explained her side of the story and has asked Mr Taylor to prove he has been wronged under the law.
Senior Labour MP John Spellar said it should never have gone to court in the first place. He said: "MPs of all parties have to deal with cases of varying degrees of merit. The House of Commons needs to take this up because there are very often problems for which an MP can offer no remedy. The final judgment on an MP should belong with the electorate at a general election."
Mrs Keen did not return calls this morning. But a source close to her said: "Ann Keen has done all she could for Mr Taylor. She tried to help at the start and has been sending acknowledgements. As recently as June last year she told Mr Taylor his solicitors should contact her if there was any useful action she could take.
"Now she has drawn a line under it and said she can do no more."
Pair dubbed 'Mr and Mrs Expenses'
ANN Keen and her husband Alan, both Labour MPs, have been engulfed in controversy over use of taxpayers' cash to pay for a central London flat.
Nicknamed "Mr and Mrs Expenses", the couple have claimed about £175,000 of public funds to buy and run the flat on the South Bank while having a home in Mrs Keen's Brentford constituency just nine miles away.
Health minister Mrs Keen, 60, and her 71-year-old husband used two mortgages - funded through the second-home allowance system for MPs - to buy the flat near the Royal Festival Hall.
They do not each claim the full second home allowance of £23,000 a year.
Mrs Keen and her husband, who is MP for Feltham and Heston, however, did claim for £867.57-a-month premiums on life insurance policies worth £430,000.
The Commons authorities approved the payments but no longer allow claims for insurance premiums.
Reader views (21)
The True and Full details of this action, taken by Mr. Taylor are so complicated that it would have been very difficult to get it all in to one printable article but I can assure anyone, in any doubt at all, that John was not asking Mrs Keen to do anything remarkable, simply, in the first instance, to make representation, on his behalf to the Minister of Justice. He HAS been totally exonerated of the charges laid against him, What he IS asking for is COMPENSATION for unlawful imprisonment. His conviction was secured largely on perjury and unsafe evidence presented by the Police. He is mearly asking for Compensation, as would anyone who had lost Respect,Business,Character,Freedom and had their entire Life ruined by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mrs Keen was asked to make representation to the Minister of Justice showing that A COURT of the Land had made an Order which the Government had ignored. Heil-sk london, if this is a hopeless case and a waste of Court time and public money presumably you consider the Defence of our Country and the Death of hundreds of thousands of our Service Men and Women, LIVES given out of Love and Duty to protect and Preserve the very Freedoms that we enjoy today (in spite of all this Governments efforts)to have been an equal waste of Public Money? If that is the case then God Help us all! God Save the Queen!
- Jenny Keane, Invergarry, Scotland
I worked for an MP a few years ago. The average postbag is huge. All MPs, across all parties, have multiple tasks every day, of which constituency problems are part. Very few MPs, of any party are lazy. On the contrary, they work horrendously long hours for the sort of pay that a CityBoy wouldn't get out of bed for.
Mrs Keen can do nothing but raise his case. She cannot change the law for him, or overturn his conviction.
By all means, critiscise MPs for their policy decisions, and denounce those with their snouts in the trough. But most politicians work extremely hard. This is not about party politics. i happen to be Labour. At Parliement, next door's office was Tory, and there were Lib Dems down the corridor. They all, including staff, worked hard and were honest and decent. Sorry, ruins the story a bit, but its true - MPs work hard.
- Rob, London, UK
As an American commentator has just observed
"Politics consists of more lawbreakers than lawmakers and it's the only field in which the more experience you have, the worse you get."
- Southoffrancedon, France
Of course MPs are accountable: if you don't think they are doing a good job then you vote for someone else! There are lots of people out there who think their case deserves more attention that it should get; and plenty of people think Gorvernment is the answer to all their problems-though usually the same people who then moan about Government no matter who is in power.
- Alan, London
Election addresses go to every house in the CLP delivered by the Royal Mail- cant blame Ann for non receipt of those! There are no "wrong" parts of Brentford and Isleworth.
This man should have got his solicitors to respond to Ann's request to give her further information. As for taking your MP to court thats really ott.The Court did overturn the so called fine when they heard from Ann as to what she had done for this man.
- Margaret, Isleworth, Middlesex
Surely an MP has more important things to do than run around after a someone with a persecution complex.
- Kerry, Purley
Good on him I say it's about time that MPs bucked up their ideas and become accountable to the general public, they seem to forget that the word "Public Servant" means just that.
3 Years in prison for stealing £17...?? Nowadays criminals get barely half that punishment for violent muggings, assault, manslaughter, hit & run, burglary...
50 years ago the government may have been over-zealous with their criminal justice system, nowadays however we have the opposite problem, and just look at the depressing society we now live in. Criminals don't get punished so they keep doing the crimes, MPs are not held to account so they keep on inventing imaginary crime statistics, spending taxpayers cash on 2nd homes and fobbing us off with beaurocratic drivel, while the very fabric of our country unravels ever faster.
I'm 26 and I have no faith left in MPs and in the way our country is governed, when I have kids I don't want them to grow up in this country, its social and moral fibres are withered and freyed to the core.
- Liz Galvin, London E14
Well I live in her constituency and Mrs Keen has never bothered to even send an election communication to me or my neighbours - probably because I live in the 'wrong' part of the borough.
It is no secret that she has one of the lowest records for asking questions in the House but near the top of the list for claiming expenses so I find all this quite believable.
- Diana, London
Anne Keen is a liability and indeed a lazy MP. I have written to her numerous times with regards to her expense claims and in particular to her second homes expenses - she has never replied or justified herself.
- Raminder Bhalla, Islworth
MPs get all sorts of correspondence from their constituents. Whilst I'm normally the first to criticise my MP (Kate Hoey) for her sluggish response to letters, ultimately in this case it sounds as though this MP has been put in a tough spot by a constituent who incorrectly believes that it is within her power to resolve his problem. She'd written to his lawyers requesting details of specific steps that they think she should be taking - and had no response. It sounds like this guy is clutching at straws...
- Mark Lee, Vauxhall
Fully support any constituent in an attempt to embarass these workshy leeches with their ability to bleed the public purse.
- p.doff, filey uk
She's not lazy. Just busy. THose expense claim forms sure take it out of you!
- harry p, Dublin
Mr Taylor is right – Mrs Keen is lazy if she could not even be bothered to defend her case in court!
I am a constituent of hers also and have been I contact with her office a few times and received acknowledgements (a per printed post card) from her office but nothing more.
She should pay the £15,000 awarded to Mr Taylor ASAP and out of her own pocket.
- Jonathan Davies, London
A wrongful conviction from 1962? Everyone would have forgotten it if the man hadn't brought it up. Anyway MPs don't have any power to cancel 47-year-old criminal convictions, only the Court of Appeal does that.
- David Boothroyd, London, UK
MP's "outraged" by thought of the law being used to hold them to account! Absolutely priceless, they now think that the are above the law.
"One rule for them, one rule for us!"
MP's are granted specific exemptions from defined aspects of law ONLY to allow them to carry out their duties without let or hindrance, NOT so they can avoid any accountability or responsibility.
A vote in a general election should not be the only way to hold an MP accountable!
- Manny Goldstein, London, UK
A lot of MPs are useless, if not lazy. The Commons is stuffed with people who think writing a law or a letter changes things. It doesn't. It's like a manager in a real job sending an email - that is not managing, it is backside covering. You have to go and meet people, talk with them, encourage and persuade them, hassle them, check on up them, and see a job through. MPs don't do that, they send out a letter and say, that's it, I did my bit.
- Tom Moncrieff, london W6
Let's hope more public money isn't wasted in court time over this. MPs receive millions of requests for help, and in each case no doubt the petitioner believes that their case is not only unique but utterly righteous within the law. Is the MP supposed to offer unconditional help even though legal advice says differently? Why should MPs be held responsible for hopeless cases?
- sk, london
Could these 'expense endowed' MP's not bung him a few quid on expenses and tell him to go away !!
- nick holland, glasgow scotland
Good luck Mr Taylor, MPs are not above the law and should be liable to professional negligence like other "professionals". That the electorate gets a rare chance to vote is immaterial - voting is merely a job interview. Would you forgive an incompetant Doctor because they passed a job panel? I think it would be good for democracy for the courts to take an independant view of what MPs actually do for the vast sums of money we pay them. These two MPs have been fleecing the taxpayer for years - the figures are jaw dropping. Let's put them under public scrutiny for once.
- Joe, London
Oddly enough I side with the MP, Ann Keen, on this one. Spooky or what?
- W R Stevenson, London SE26
Isn't it lucky for the MPs that in Britain you can't launch a class-action law suit?!
- Roz, Chamonix, France
