He kept a file marked Special Friends

Soon after Keith Vaz was appointed Minister for Europe he acquired a nickname - The Brahmin. The name stuck because of the extraordinarily regal air he adopted among junior staff at the Foreign Office. According to one insider the sobriquet was not entirely appropriate, however, because in the company of anyone remotely important the new minister dazzled everyone with his flair for obsequiousness.

"I am a leading member of the Asian community," he once declared, adding: "If not the leading member." It was a role he took seriously and many among Britain's Asian community felt here was a man who, in high office, would work tirelessly for them. Indeed, the evidence shows he was indefatigable in his efforts for the Hinduja family.

His talent for friendship brought him to the attention of New Labour powerbrokers during Tony Blair's first term and in 1999 he was taken off the backbenches to work as a junior minister in the Lord Chancellor's Department. Lord Irvine said with undisguised admiration: "He is the best networker I have ever seen."

Nigel Keith Anthony Standish Vaz was born in Aden, the son of an affluent Catholic Goan-Indian family. His father was a correspondent for The Times of India, then had a successful career as an airline executive.

The family moved to Leicester in the 1960s and Mr Vaz was enrolled at Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith.

He was a good student and joined the Labour party while studying A-level politics. He went on to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and gained BA and MA honours degrees.

He took up law, became a solicitor and at one stage worked for Islington borough. He worked for Labour in his spare time and got on to the candidates' list, but it was 1987 before he secured a seat at Leicester East.

The town had become his power base. There was controversy in 1994 when Labour launched an internal inquiry into allegations that Mr Vaz and a group of cronies were bullying councillors and attempting to interfere with the running of Leicester council.

The investigation was handled by Claire Ward, a party official who became an MP in the 1997 election. She said Mr Vaz blocked all attempts to investigate him and in 1995 she wrote to the Labour general secretary: "I believe that Keith Vaz has been allowed to escape any investigation into the complaints made to the inquiry team by Leicester party members and he is treating both those members and myself with contempt." Nothing was done.

Some felt Mr Vaz, 45, was simply accident-prone. Others felt uneasy. The British High Commission in India was understood to be concerned after he intervened 18 times to overrule decisions not to allow Indian citizens into the UK.

One report said he had overturned no fewer than 50 immigration department decisions.

Indeed, Mr Vaz became known in the Asian community as the man to see if difficulties with the immigration authorities were being experienced.

At one stage he was holding "surgeries" in India for would-be immigrants. A former assistant revealed that he ordered immigration forms 50 at a time and kept a file marked "SF" - Special Friends.

Despite his arduous immigration duties he did find time to acquire an unusual number of houses. He admitted to owning three, but it was later discovered that he had a fourth home and switched ownership of a fifth, a Kennington flat, to his mother Merlyn shortly after Elizabeth Filkin asked him about his property ownership. When he married the Left-wing lawyer Maria Fernandez in 1993, Merlyn took the role of best man. The couple have two children.

Controversy over business dealings, a number of newspaper articles and repeated attempts by Ms Filkin for help in her investigation of him took their toll on Mr Vaz. He became rather ill just before last year's election.

He retained his seat but was not invited to rejoin the Government.