A Labour councillor from Redbridge who was suspended from the Party ahead of 2019 UK General allegations following allegations of sexual harassment has disclosed how he had thought of suicide during those days.
Jas Athwal, was reinstated in the Labour Party last month and has now said that he had been forced to wait almost a year for his case to be heard. Speaking to The Guardian, he said how he had spent more than £150,000 fighting to clear his name.
He said, “In that two-week period, I thought of [suicide] often,” he said. “It was the darkest time. I’ve got four lovely children. I’ve got a lovely wife. I’ve got an amazing life…And I’ve got so much to live for. But you almost feel you’ve dragged everybody down into the mud and that, basically, you need to finish it all off and walk away.
“They drove me, a successful human being who’s got so much to live for and so many things I need to do, to the point where I was thinking, ‘What have I done to deserve this’?”
Athwal, was the main opponent to Sam Tarry, who ran Corbyn’s 2016 Labour party leadership campaign and it was widely reported that Jas’s last-minute suspension could be blamed on him.
Athwal said he was the victim of a “politically motivated” process despite responding in full to the allegation against him almost two months earlier. It took a further 11 months to have his case heard by the party’s top disciplinary committee. He said his lowest ebb came in the run-up to the election and had “begged” the police to investigate the claims against him.
