17-05-2025
Death threat forces Jenrick to get restraining order
Robert Jenrick has been forced to take out a restraining order against a man who sent him a death threat.
The shadow justice secretary received the threat in a voicemail message during the final week of his Conservative leadership campaign last autumn.
It comes amid growing threats to the safety of MPs, and after an arson attack that allegedly targeted Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, at the start of last week.
The Telegraph can disclose that Mr Jenrick took out a restraining order last month against a 41-year-old man in Surrey who was convicted of a malicious communications offence.
On April 2, the man pleaded guilty to sending an offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing message by a public communication network.
Court records show that this took the form of a voicemail message in which it is understood the man threatened Mr Jenrick by saying he would 'smash his head to s---'.
Further threats are believed to relate to the Tory frontbencher's home and family.
The man was sentenced to 60 hours' unpaid work but avoided a jail sentence. He has been ordered not to contact Mr Jenrick or his constituency office until April 2027. The man was also forced to pay £85 in costs, as well as a further £114 surcharge.
A source close to Mr Jenrick said: 'If people think threats will silence Rob, they need to give their head a wobble. This only makes him more determined to keep going.
'Rob just brushes these things off, but not everyone can do that. The constant threats and attacks on politicians will stop the good people we need from entering politics.'
'An attack on democracy'
Two MPs have been killed in the past decade while performing their public duties.
Jo Cox was fatally shot and stabbed just before holding a constituency surgery in 2016, and Sir David Amess was killed during a constituency surgery in Southend in 2021.
At the end of last week, Roman Lavrynovych, a 21-year-old Ukrainian national, was charged after two properties and a car linked to Sir Keir were torched in suspected firebomb attacks.
On Saturday, another man, 26, was arrested at 1.45pm at Luton Airport in connection with the fires.
Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, Sir Keir described the incidents as an ' attack on democracy '.
The Speaker's Conference, an extraordinary committee convened by Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Commons Speaker, is expected to make recommendations about improving MPs' safety within weeks.
Vijay Rangarajan, the chief executive of the Electoral Commission, said the authorities must do more in response to social media abuse as well as deepfake porn targeting female MPs.
Mr Rangarajan said: 'We've seen some horrendous social media abuse and deepfake porn of prominent female politicians and some others on social media.
'All of that is criminal and actionable but at the moment when someone gets some of this horrendous stuff, their instinct is to delete it and to ignore it because they don't want to amplify it.
'A pilot finding who's behind this and prosecuting them when it meets the threshold is working well in the Scottish Parliament, and we want to see this rolled out more broadly.'
He went on to say the quality of interactions between voters and candidates had decreased, and that a rising atmosphere of intimidation was 'putting off candidates from standing'.
'Wave of intimidation in public life'
Lord Walney, the Government's former adviser on political violence, said the attacks allegedly targeting Sir Keir must lead to greater protections for MPs in their constituencies.
He told The Telegraph: 'The alarming attacks on the Prime Minister's house and related properties underlines why we need a zero tolerance approach to elected representatives being targeted in their homes.
'For too long, too many have tried to blur the line between legitimate protest and appalling intimidation that can put people's families at risk.'
Lord Walney warned of a 'wave of intimidation in public life' that he said was 'fuelled by extreme activists' who risked driving people out of politics altogether.
'The apparent links between the attacks related to Sir Keir also highlights the need for better intelligence and data sharing between police forces,' the peer said.
'My review found weaknesses in the system which meant that criminal incidents targeting MPs in their constituencies were not always properly flagged through to the Westminster-based monitoring and acting on threats to elected representatives.'
