GAVIN Barwell's assistant has admitted removing an entry about a Croydon Advertiser story from the MP's Wikipedia page.
Mario Creatura, also a local councillor, deleted a reference to the Advertiser's 'Campaign to End All Campaigns', a satirical article about the Croydon Central MP.
Mr Creatura admitted to editing the page this morning when contacted by the Advertiser.
He insisted he had "no problem with people criticising" Mr Barwell but said the entry was not "biographical" and was "politically motivated".
When the Advertiser pointed out Wikipedia was not there for him to remove things about an elected official he does not like, he replied: "I can do whatever I like when it comes to that."
Mr Barwell has not yet been reached for comment.
The entry concerned a light-hearted Advertiser article, published in December, which called on Mr Barwell to stop launching campaigns, after he set up his fifth petition in little more than a month.
The Conservative politician's Wikipedia page referenced a report about our piece in The Independent.
It said: "The local paper the Croydon Advertiser called on Mr Barwell to "stop launching campaigns" and persistent attempts at headline-grabbing in December 2014, saying 'Gavin, we get it, there's an election on'."
Mr Creatura deleted that sentence from the page at 10.22am using his computer at the House of Commons. That change has since been undone by another Wikipedia user.
"It was more of a political point than a biographical point so I took it out," he said when contacted by the Advertiser today (Thursday).
"It's my job to try and protect [Mr Barwell]...or at least try and make things as accurate as possible.
"I don't mind it being there if it's entirely accurate, like a biographical entry.
"I didn't think having the comment 'We get it, there's an election on' [was fair].
"I thought Wikipedia was about biographical accuracy without political bias.
Mr Creatura, a Coulsdon West councillor, added: "I hold my hands up. It was an error. I took the sentence out. It was a half-a-second thing.
"I didn't think about the repercussions. I didn't think about what I was doing other than I didn't think it was appropriate on a Wikipedia page.
"What I took out was factually accurate not out of political motivation – yeah there was a bit of that in my head – but the main reason I did it was because I thought it was slightly politically biased and I want everything on Wikipedia, no matter whose page it is, to be factually accurate."
Mr Creatura said Mr Barwell was not aware he had removed reference to the Advertiser's campaign or that he had edited the page in the past.
He added: "Gavin's not the most technically-minded person. He generally has no idea. He trusts me to do whatever."
Wikipedia pages of Labour politician Frank Dobson and former Croydon Central MP Geraint Davies, as well as a number of other politicians, have been edited from the same IP address.
Mr Creatura denied editing any page other than Mr Barwell's and said he did not believe what he had done would affect his position.
"I don't think Gavin will have a view about it either way," he said.
"I don't think he will sack me for taking a sentence out of his Wikipedia page."
Wikipedia, Gavin Barwell and Steven Seagal
Mr Barwell's Wikipedia page has been subject to hundreds of edits since it was first made in September 2008, writes Tom Matthews.
Though the vast majority are mundane a couple - other than Mr Creatura's recent edit - are particularly interesting.
In April 2014, a reference was removed by a Wikipedia administrator about a political gaffe a year earlier when his attempt to attack Labour over 'Asian dating adverts' backfired as it transpired such adverts use Google Adsense, which tailors adverts based on the computer user's "interests".
The moderator said the story was a "slow news day non-event" and that "there is no evidence Barwell spends his spare time sifting through dating sites"
In the same month Wikipedia user Newbluejeans edited Mr Barwell's to page to say he was an admirer of American action movie hardman Steven Seagal.
The user even edited the page to suggest that Mr Barwell's middle names were Steven and Seagal, and that his profession was 'Steven Seagal'.
