Shadow Labour minister Kate Osamor allegedly threatens journalist with bat
Labour frontbencher Kate Osamor allegedly threatened a journalist with a bat last night after she was doorstepped in relation to her son’s drug case.
Osamor, 50, the MP for Edmonton and shadow secretary of state for international development, allegedly told the journalist to f*ck off, threatened him with a bat and threw a bucket of water at him.
The Times journalist was approaching her for comment in relation to reports she had misled the public over her knowledge of her son’s arrest.
The newspaper reported her as saying she “should have come down here with a bat and smashed your face in”.
Her son, Ishmael Osamor, 29, who she employs in her parliamentary office, was arrested for drug possession at the Bestival music festival in Dorset last year.
Labour Party officials had said Kate Osamor knew nothing of his arrest until he was sentenced in October.
However, it has now emerged that Kate Osamor had written a letter to the judge in the case, asking for leniency and describing his remorse.
Ishmael Osamor was caught with £2,500-worth of ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and cannabis at the festival in Dorset in August last year.
He was subsequently elected to Haringey Council where he held a cabinet role.
In October he was sentenced to a two-year community order and 20 days rehabilitation, with the judge reportedly telling him he was “very lucky” not to receive a custodial sentence.
He subsequently resigned from his position on Haringey council and resigned as a councillor but continued his role as his mother’s chief-of-staff.
Kate Osamor is a close ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who nominated her mother, Martha Osamor, for a life peerage in May.
Kate Osamor and the Labour Party were contacted for comment.