Police confiscate narcotics, arms in UK parliament

British police have revealed they arrested more than 40 members of parliament (MPs) since May 2010 for offences including the possession of narcotics and firearms or breaching police bail.

The revelation made through a Freedom of Information (FoI) request by the Huffington Post UK exposes the fact that lawmakers are not as clean as other people on the street.

The Metropolitan Police said their SO17 division responsible for patrolling the Parliamentary estate, managed to confiscate narcotics from parliamentarians several times during the period.

According to the Huffington Post report, officers had to seize drugs off people on the Parliamentary estate three times during 2013.

The report also said cocaine use was spotted inside the toilets at the Houses of Parliament in June last year.

Parliament’s computer network, meanwhile, has registered visits to illegal drug sites on multiple occasions, the report said.

In the second half of 2010, more than 20 arrests were made, of which 15 were carried out for criminal trespass in the Houses of Parliament.

Most of the other arrests in that year were made for immigration-related offences, according to the report.

In 2011, 7 people were arrested for offences ranging from burglary, assault, the possession of a firearm, criminal damage and for possessing an “imitation firearm and bladed instrument”.

In 2012, at least five arrests were made by police, and finally in 2013, 11 arrests were made including two for the possession of drugs, two more for breaching bail, six for criminal trespass and one for the possession of an “offensive weapon”.