A man has been given a suspended prison sentence for sending racist death threats to former prime minister Rishi Sunak.
Liam Shaw, 21, of Birkenhead, sent two threatening and offensive emails to the public email address of Mr Sunak on June 15 last year when the former Conservative leader was still prime minister, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
The emails were spotted by Mr Sunak’s personal assistant and reported to the police.
The CPS said the language in the two emails was “racist, offensive and suggested Mr Sunak should be killed by the public”.
The emails had been sent by Shaw’s phone and police traced them to his email address and a hostel where he was staying in Birkenhead, Merseyside.
Shaw was arrested by police on September 3 2024 and charged with two counts of sending by a public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, or menacing message.
When the allegations were put to him by police, Shaw said: “I don’t even remember sending an email. I was probably drunk.”
Shaw pleaded guilty to both counts at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court on July 10 2025.
He was sentenced at the same court on Wednesday to 14 weeks’ imprisonment for both counts, to run concurrently, with the sentence suspended for 12 months.
Shaw must also complete 20 days of a rehabilitation activity and a six-month drug rehabilitation course.
The CPS also successfully applied for a restraining order which the court imposed for two years – it states that Shaw must have no contact with Mr Sunak or his constituency office in that time.
District Judge Timothy Boswell said at the sentencing: “Direct access to your constituency MP is a cornerstone of democracy. Misusing that access is detrimental to the democratic process. Clearly it is a highly aggravating factor for the offence.”
Senior Crown prosecutor Matthew Dixon, of CPS Mersey Cheshire, said: “Liam Shaw took to his phone that night to send racist and threatening messages to a person in an extremely important public office.
“The work of Members of Parliament is extremely important and the police and the Crown Prosecution Service play their part in keeping them safe and able to do their work without fear.
“The Crown Prosecution Service has always and will continue to safeguard a person’s right to freedom of expression.
“But this is clearly a case where the comments made were utterly beyond the boundary of what is tolerable in a fair, just and multi-racial society, and passed into the realm of criminality.
“Racist abuse has no place, anywhere, in this day and age.”
