Theresa May
(Picture: AFP/Getty Images)A man who threatened to kill Theresa May “with knife or a gun” when she was Prime Minister in a campaign of abuse against politicians has been jailed for two years.
Wajid Shah, 27, sent abusive emails to Mrs May and five others, including former Labour Home Secretary Lord David Blunkett and MP Caroline Nokes.
Also among his targets were Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, Baroness Lister, and former-Armed Forces minister Mark Lancaster.
Southwark crown court heard Shah also tried to email other politicians, including Boris Johnson, but the messages were intercepted.
Boris Johnson was also among the targets
REUTERSProsecutor Barry McElduff said Mrs May occasionally received abusive messages when she was Prime Minister, but this one stood out as an “explicit and repeated” threat to kill.
She found the email “extremely offensive, threatening and disturbing” and was “left feeling anxious and concerned”, the court heard.
Shah, from Slough in Berkshire, called Lord Blunkett a “retarded blind bastard” in two emails, which the peer said he found “deeply offensive and threatening”.
Ms Nokes read Shah’s message to her in the House of Commons library, noting the author appeared to have researched her constituency address and she drew comparisons with MP Jo Cox who was murdered in her constituency in 2016.
Lord David Blunkett was among Wajid Shah’s targets
Getty ImagesBaroness Lister said she found the message to her “indicative of a disturbed mind”, while Mr Dhesi – Shah’s constituency MP – said four abusive emails including a threat to kill led him to shut down his office.
Judge Philip Bartle QC today sentenced Shah, who has an IQ of 58, to two years in prison, telling him the emails were “extremely offensive and abhorrent”.
Shah denied but was convicted at trial of six counts of sending a letter/communication or article conveying a threatening message between March and April last year.
