Andrew Rosindell: I was victim of poison pen campaign

Andrew Rosindell told the Romford Recorder he had spent years working harder than the average MP, picking up work for under-performing local councillors, and been rewarded with poison pen letters smearing his reputation.

“There’s a lot of jealousy,” he said. “A lot of people would like my job. A lot of people would like to see me thrown under the bus, so they could be the MP for Romford.

“There’s a whole string of these people, actually – and they tried to do me down during this period.”

Mr Rosindell would not say who he believed had been plotting against him after his May 2022 arrest over historic rape and sexual assault allegations.

He spent 21 months unable to attend Parliament before police closed the case without even seeking charges.

“I would say about 90 per cent of my work carried on as normal,” he said. “I just blanked it out. I thought, ‘I’ve got a duty to do’… The only thing I couldn’t do is come in here [to Parliament].”

But he said: “On top of all this other stress of having the police inquiry; of having to do my job without the facilities of coming here; and the cost of employing lawyers - and that’s colossal… I’m dealing with malicious people who are trying to push me out.

“There were several people who want my job as the MP for Romford and they were rather hoping that this would all go wrong for me and there’d be a by-election.

“Several of them were sniffing around the constituency and some are local. And some, I believe, make up names and were using pseudonyms to attack me, to write letters, send emails around, go on the internet.”

During the police investigation, Mr Rosindell claimed, somebody sent an “incredibly defamatory” and “totally false” letter “to senior members of the local party, accusing me of things which were totally false, hoping it would precipitate me to resign.

“It was an attempt to drag me under a bus. But it wasn’t the only one. There were many attempts like that.”

He complained of “fake letters” sent to the Recorder’s letters page “from people that don’t exist”.

One used a pseudonym combining his dead mother’s name and the street he lives on.

Andrew Rosindell granted the Romford Recorder his first in-depth interview since being cleared of historic sex offences. He met our reporter in his office at Parliament (Image: Charles Thomson)

Catch up:

• 'People said vile, wicked things': Romford MP relives rape arrest ordeal

“There’s one person behind it, we believe… it’s very malicious,” he said.

“I have every respect for you to attack me on my political views. You don’t like what I stand for, you can question me, you can attack me, you can do what you like.

“But unfortunately, some people are not driven by principles and values… they can’t wait for people like me to be out the way so they’ve got a chance to get the position.”

Mr Rosindell said he received around 1,000 pieces of casework per month.

“Some MPs are very hands-off,” he claimed. “I’m the extreme opposite… I read every single email. I look at every single letter.”

The “vast majority” of his time is spent helping residents with “genuine screw-ups by government, by local government, by public bodies, by the NHS, by the police.”

In his opinion, he is compensating for under-performing councillors.

“There are some good ones,” he said, naming Judith Holt and Viddy Persaud.

But he claimed: “There are others that do nothing. Literally nothing. They don’t do casework. They don’t do anything in their wards. They don’t even contribute to local newsletters.

“So because they do nothing, all the work comes to me… so I effectively have to act as a local councillor for a big chunk of the area as well.”

“I’m a bit of a unique politician in many senses,” Mr Rosindell said in his first in-depth interview since being cleared.

“I’m not bought off by honours and jobs and things like that. I say what I believe in and I’m deeply committed to my constituency. And a lot of MPs aren’t.

“A lot of people cannot understand how I keep winning elections and doing so well. It’s because I work hard and because I resonate with the local people.”