A man who targeted MPs with abusive messages calling them “baby killers” has been given a suspended prison sentence.
Adrian Price, 57, left voicemail messages and emails for Yvette Cooper, Sir James Cleverly and Peter Kyle, Wigan Magistrates’ Court heard.
He told the court: “I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours protesting. It all got too much for my head. My bipolar.”
In voicemails to Cooper’s office, he left a message saying: “You dirty bitch. I’m going to get you. You baby-killing c***. You have got war criminal all over you.”
In a second voicemail to the Labour MP for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, who was foreign secretary at the time, he said: “You stink of Israeli genocide.
“Just because you don’t have your own children doesn’t mean you should kill others. We all know you have taken dirty shekels. Israeli-sponsored bitch.”
To Sir James, the Conservative MP for Braintree, Price, an unemployed concrete re-enforcer, left a message saying: “Just because people don’t support Israel, don’t think they’re antisemitic, you f****** baby killing bastard.”
To Kyle, the Labour MP for Hove and Portslade, he said: “You stink of dead Palestinian children, you dirty, failed human being.”
Jane Deakin, prosecuting, told the court emails sent by Price “were in similar terms”.
Price, of Bombay Road, Wigan, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to three offences of malicious communications, between January 26 and March 9, earlier this year.
Two of the MPs had supplied victim impact statements.
Sir James wrote that, as an MP, he expected criticism and disagreement, but that Price went “far beyond critical political engagement”.
He said such behaviour had caused “distress and alarm” to himself and his office staff and disrupted their work for constituents.
Kyle’s statement said: “No one should have to be afraid to go to their workplace or work. It has created an atmosphere of terror.”
Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, who is involved in security and pastoral care for MPs, said in a statement: “I firmly believe we have an obligation to protect democracy, particularly those elected by the ballot box.
“In recent years I have received phone calls that two members of parliament have been murdered.”
The Speaker said the effect of abuse was to erode confidence and generate fear, and MPs had told him they were planning to stand down at the next election.
He added: “Democracy itself is at risk.”
Katie Maloney, defending, said Price was now remorseful and, at the time of the offending, was struggling with his mental health and self-medicating with alcohol.
Maloney said he has since recognised he needs counselling and has curtailed his use of alcohol.
Passing sentence, District Judge Lucy Hogarth, told the defendant: “You caused real fear and distress both to the targets and their staff.
“There was an implied threat of violence to Yvette Cooper.
“This kind of language is not going to change anybody’s minds.”
Judge Hogarth said that, as there was some prospect of rehabilitation, the 16-week prison sentence could be suspended for 18 months.
She also ordered an alcohol treatment programme, a probation requirement and unpaid work of 100 hours.
Price was ordered to pay £239 in victim’s surcharge and court costs and given a 10-year restraining order preventing him from contacting any of the three MPs.
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