David Lammy MP, Angela Rayner MP, Rachel Reeves MP and Cllr Michael Situ were all investigated: Why not Jas Athwal MP?

 I sent this to  Claire Hamilton and Councillor Rai yesterday. I will write more after the 27th November.

Dear Claire Hamilton and Councillor Rai

 

Recent developments suggest Redbridge should carry out and publish the outcome of any investigation into whether Jas Athwal MP should have been fined for not having a landlord licence and his sub-standard flats. I rely on breaches of the Nolan code which led to investigations into the conduct of David Lammy MP, Angela Rayner MP, Rachel Reeves MP and Cllr Michael Situ. 

 

Cllr Situ's lack of a licence has led to a report in the Evening Standard which stated - “The matter has also been referred to the council’s Monitoring Officer for investigation.”

So far Redbridge is refusing to say if an investigation into Mr Athwal has taken place following the Joe Pike BBC story last year. 

This is unacceptable; there should have two investigations, one by the monitoring officer and another by your landlord enforcement team to make several inspections of the rental properties in question to determine what remedial works needed to be done followed by further inspections to check if the works had been carried out. Guidance on your site and court case involving Redbridge Council and Irene Ekweozoh reported in the Redbridge Guardian suggest Mr Athwal should have fined as a consequence of any investigations. 

The apparent lack of either being done leads to a reasonable suspicion of misconduct in public office. While I am pursuing documents at the Information Commissioners Office to discover if any offence may have been committed it must be right for this issue to be resolved as soon as possible.

I say this because Labour is in charge of the borough and controls planning, education housing etc. It must be reasonable for residents to be concerned that if Jas Athwal is getting preferential treatment because he is a Labour member, other Labour members and their friends may also be getting favourable treatment. It also follows that political opponents who are campaigning for an investigation into Jas Athwal will be unfairly targeted. 

I stand in elections against Labour and have been the subject of unfair and some arguably unlawful actions by Labour: examples are,
 

a- Being fined for leafleting outside the Town Hall. This was clearly politically motivated, the council regulations ban commercial not political leaflets. The video is at my YouTube channel andywalker679 on 25th June 2025. I have not paid the fine and got no decision on my appeal.
 

b- There was a nonsense vexatious claim made by the Council at the ICO recently which was overruled by Commissioner. For the Council to imply that I had around a hundred information requests about Jas Athwal brought the Council and the Labour Party into disrepute. The real figure was around 25 requests over 5 years and only a small number featured Jas Athwal. 

c – During the last General Election when I was a candidate, the Council broadcast was turned off when I was speaking at planning meeting. Purdah was the given purpose. This is a nonsense because Jas Athwal had no such restrictions put on him.

 

d- Restrictions on me and others being able to speak at council meetings. I am the only person to be banned from entering the Town Hall. I say the Human Right Act article 10 protects freedom of speech. While the public do not have a statutory right to address council meetings; should the Council give them that right, what they say is not constrained by the current restrictive standing orders. Instead the lawful restrictions are inciting violence, hate speech etc or the chair of the meeting stopping the member of the public speaking because he/she believes what they are saying is outside the Council's remit. 

Cllr Begum has also been a vocal supporter of the campaign to investigate Jas Arhwal and she has recently been the subject of show trial. How could Cllr Begum get a fair trial when a Labour Cllr was making the complaint and the panel had a majority of Labour Councillors?

During the hearing Cllr Khan made it clear that he had the support of the Labour Whip who was sitting behind him showing how corrupt the process was. I would be grateful if you could tell me by close of business on 27th November:

a – Has an investigation has taken place into Jas Athwal by the monitoring officer about the Joe Pike story? Especially since Mr Athwal relied upon a managing agent for not having a licence and the poor state of his properties. The Redbridge landlord register suggests he did not have an agent and so leads to the concern that he or his family managed the properties. 

 

b- Did your landlord licensing department investigate Jas Athwal's properties for the reasons given above and if so what was their conclusions? 

 

Regards

 

Andy Walker