Ex-standards chief said Tory MP backed her into corner and warned ‘watch your back’

Parliament’s former standards commissioner has claimed a Tory MP backed her into a corner and warned her to "watch your back" as she investigated a lobbying scandal.

Kathryn Stone, who left the watchdog role at the end of last year, said a female Conservative backed her into a corner and said: “You need to watch yourself. The knives are out for you; you just watch your back.”

Ms Stone, who resigned last year, claimed the behaviour could have been an attempt to intimidate her, adding: “It didn’t work.”

At the time, she was investigating then-MP Owen Paterson, who was accused of repeatedly lobbying on behalf of two companies paying him more than £100,000 a year.

The report following her investigation, approved by a crossparty group of MPs on the standards committee, described it as an “egregious case of paid advocacy”.

Boris Johnson, then-prime minister, tried to rewrite the sleaze rules to save the former environment secretary from suspension. Mr Paterson eventually was forced to resign following the scandal.

Ms Stone told Channel 4 News there were efforts to undermine her and the system of investigations.

“The implications of what was going on were on a number of levels, one of which was very personal,” she said.

“In the run-up to the amendment debate, there had been some incredibly personal attacks on me: my appearance; where I grew up; my education; the way I spoke.

“But also, more fundamentally, attacks of the standards system itself. This was a blatant attack to undermine the system by the people who wrote the rules, didn’t like them, and were ripping up the rule book to start again.

“It was more than entitled people – it was people working with them.

“I was approached by a doughty female Conservative MP who backed me into a corner and said: ‘You need to watch yourself; the knives are out for you; you just watch your back’.

“One interpretation is that she was offering friendly supportive advice; the other is that it was an attempt to intimidate me. It didn’t work.”

She claimed MPs also behaved inappropriately in attempts to curb her investigations, adding: “I remember interviewing one member of parliament on allegations of sexual misconduct. During the discussion he asked me if I wanted to have coffee with him.

“When I asked, “Coffee?” he said, “Oh, I’m so sorry, lunch”. The coffee or the lunch wasn’t the issue – the issue was that this was an entirely inappropriate moment to be asking somebody to have coffee or lunch with you and was probably why we were having the conversation in the first place.

“I’ve been invited out for a drink with people I was investigating – again, wholly inappropriate.

“One member of parliament said if only I had gone round to his house for dinner, we could have had a conversation and sorted it all out. I’m afraid in the 21st century, conversations over drinks and dinner are not the way that proper investigative processes are carried out.”

She added: “People would challenge authority and credibility – ‘she’s not a lawyer, you’re not a lawyer’. I don’t need to be a lawyer to see what the code of conduct says and to see what evidence of what a breach of conduct has shown me.”

Mr Johnson’s appearance at the Privileges Committee last week was “quite extraordinary”, Ms Stone said, defending the process against claims it was unfair and biased.

“Of course it’s fair. It’s a parliamentary process being overseen and advised by Sir Ernest Ryder, who is a former senior member of the judiciary.”

Asked why his supporters object to the investigation, she said: “It’s my experience that everyone loves a process until the process is turned on them. Everyone thinks it’s really important that members of parliament are being held to account until it’s them that are being held to account.”

Ms Stone had been accused of being partisan in a report claiming she investigated 13 Conservative MPs and only five Labour, with all but three being Brexit supporters.

“I have no idea who voted for or against Brexit,” she said.

“It’s not part of any consideration of investigations of allegations. We certainly didn’t keep a score sheet of which party, and there were occasions I didn’t know which party people were in, either. My concern was simply to consider the allegations.”

The Independent has contacted the Conservative Party for comment.