Eil Parish has revealed that police “kindly” confiscated his shotguns to prevent him from shooting himself after he was caught watching pornography in the House of Commons.
The former Conservative MP for Tiverton and Honiton formally resigned in May after admitting to watching pornography twice on his phone in Parliament.
In a candid interview on LBC’s Swarbrick On Sunday, Mr Parish opened up about his struggles in the wake of the scandal, claiming that Chris-Heaton Harris, the head whip, had let him “drown” rather than offer him help.
He said he was “frightened” by the paparazzi storming outside his house, shouting insults at him and death threats.
Mr Parish said: “Have you had three days with the paparazzi outside your house swearing at you? It’s enough to scare someone, and I’m not easily scared.”
He continued: “I’ve had a few death threats and you have all these cameras outside your house. And David Amess… you know, I had an office three doors down from him.
“I wouldn’t do this to my wife. I spent the entire three days trying to make sure they didn’t have the house in full view of the cameras. I think I largely succeeded in that.
“It’s not easy. And when you go to the main whip and ask for help, you expect it. You get thrown over the edge of a ship and then you have to drown.
“That’s how it works and fine, but I saw Mark Spencer on the Telegraph podcast say how caring they all were. I have to put it on the record, they are not.”
Mr Parish later acknowledged that the now Commons leader was “much better” than the current head whip, Mr Heaton-Harris, adding: “This notion that they are all there to look after us is nonsense.
“The police took me very kindly and rightly – because I’m a farmer, you see – I have shotguns, so they took them from me.
“Because when you’ve blown up your parliamentary career for 12 years, you don’t feel in the best place, and they took them for my own safety, not that I would shoot anyone else, in case I shoot myself.
If you have blown up your parliamentary career for 12 years you don’t feel in the best place, and they took them for my own safety not that I would shoot anyone else in case I shoot myself
“I did say to them in a moment of black humor, ‘I’m a very bad shooter, I’ll probably miss’, but of course they didn’t see the joke at the time, or it wasn’t very funny either.”
During the interview, Mr Parish said several times that what he was doing was “immoral” but “not illegal”.
He also claimed that he was probably “done” by some of his colleagues and then thrown to the “press wolves”.
When asked about it, he said, “I think I was probably (ready in). I was wrong looking at it: it was very immoral, it was not illegal, it was immoral, and I shouldn’t have done it.
“I was sitting right in the corner of the House of Commons when you go into the lobby to vote, so the idea people have that I was showing off in the middle of the House of Commons is absolutely wrong.
“I wasn’t proud of what I was doing and it was very wrong. But I haven’t spent the last 12 years, shall I say, divisive about fellow members.
“I asked if I could apologize if I was offended. I didn’t get that chance from the main whip and I was thrown to the press wolves.”
On the result of the by-election in Tiverton and Honiton, which was snatched by the Liberal Democrats and overthrew a Conservative majority of more than 24,000, Mr Parish said the Prime Minister should take some responsibility for it.
He said: “I think he (Boris Johnson) is playing a very dangerous game now, really. He has to face the reality that, yes, I caused the midterm election, but I didn’t lose the midterm election.
“It’s a safe place to sit. In normal times it would have been a reduced majority, and we would have sent Helen Hurford back quite comfortably, but the problem, of course, was that it was a referendum on the Prime Minister, and he has to take some responsibility.”