Murder of MP exposes double life of loving son
Man charged with killing EU-supporting politician gives his name as ‘death to traitors’.
Thomas Mair, the man charged with the murder of MP Jo Cox, gave his name as ‘‘death to traitors, freedom for Britain’’ when he appeared in court yesterday following an attack that has shocked Britain ahead of next week’s referendum on European Union membership.
Cox was shot and stabbed on Friday in the market town of Birstall, outside the library where she would meet constituents.
‘‘My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain,’’ Mair said when asked his name by the clerk at London’s Westminster Magistrates Court. When the question was repeated, Mair said the same words again, his only comments during yesterday’s 15-minute hearing.
Wearing grey sports clothing and flanked by two security guards, Mair was charged with murder, causing grievous bodily harm, and possession of a firearm and another offensive weapon.
Deputy Chief Magistrate Emma Arbuthnot said in court that a psychiatric report should be prepared ‘‘bearing in mind the name he has just given.’’
Mair will be kept in custody at Belmarsh Prison until his next court appearance, set for tomorrow at the Old Bailey courthouse.
Authorities have not offered a motive for the killing. Counterterrorism police were involved in the investigation looking for possible links, but the charges filed did not include terrorism offences.
Cox was a former aid worker who championed immigrant rights, bringing an end to Syria’s civil war and keeping the United Kingdom in the European Union. The day before her killing, Cox joined her husband and two young children in campaigning for the pro-EU cause on the River Thames, where the family had lived in a houseboat since her election last year.
Mair, a quiet loner, had concealed his right-wing sympathies to the point where no one was more shocked by his arrest than his family and neighbours.
His mother, Mary Goodall, was watching the rolling news coverage of the attack when suddenly she recognised her son being wrestled to the ground by police.
‘‘My God, that’s Tom,’’ screamed Goodall, 69. ‘‘That’s Tom’s bag, that’s Tom’s clothes.’’
As she watched with her friend Rosemary Surman, she thought He couldn’t do enough for his mum, he potted all her plants only last week – it’s like Jekyll and Hyde. that her son might have been injured while trying to help the MP. The realisation that he was her suspected killer stunned her to shock and tears.
‘‘What was a normal day turned out to be the biggest nightmare of our lives,’’ Surman, 61, said. ‘‘With the flick of a switch, it just shows that people’s lives can change – you think you know someone and suddenly you realise you don’t know them at all.
‘‘Mary is still in shock, she can’t understand because Tom was a quiet man – very attentive to her and loving and helpful. He couldn’t do enough for his mum, he potted all her plants only last week – it’s like Jekyll and Hyde.
‘‘She’s so upset for those poor children who have lost their mother and the husband who has lost his wife. She will have to live with this for the rest of her life.’’
The mystery of Thomas Mair is perplexing the people of Birstall. He was a loner with no close friends who, neighbours said, never had visitors at his home. But he was not a recluse and would chat to his neighbours, tend their gardens and do voluntary work in special needs schools and community centres.
Diana Peters, a neighbour who has known Mair since he was eight years old, said he had severe epilepsy in childhood which prevented him working and left him needing medication for much of his life. He attended local schools but did not go to university.
She described him as meek and mild-mannered.
Mair’s brother, Scott Mair, told reporters his brother had a history of mental illness, but was not violent.
Mair had been in contact with mental health experts for concerns about the obsessive compulsive disorder which affected his behaviour. Personal hygiene was a particular fixation and relatives said that Mair would clean himself with Brillo pads, did not like touching door handles and was squeamish about the sight of blood.
He received counselling and had been encouraged to involve himself in gardening projects and voluntary work. Officials said that Mair had had no contact with mental health services since 2011. He had done some gardening at Oakwell Park, a place the MP enjoyed with her family. He was an avid reader and a regular at the town library where Cox held constituency surgeries and advertised them. It was just outside the library that he allegedly attacked her on Thursday as she stepped from a car.
Several witnesses allegedly heard him shout phrases such as ‘‘put Britain first’’ as he is said to have shot her with a sawn-off rifle and lunged at her with a hunting knife.
The idea that he may have held racist beliefs stunned his family, especially his half-brother, Duane St Louis, whose father, Goodall’s second husband, comes from Guyana. ‘‘My brother is not violent and is not that political, I don’t even know who he votes for,’’ St Louis, 41, said.
Peters was never invited into the two-bedroom council house where Mair had taken over the tenancy after his grandmother’s death. She was not to know that when he went to the local library, Mair was allegedly researching extreme Right-wing politics and ordering Nazi literature which was posted to the address and was found when police teams searched the property.
Evidence has emerged online showing that Mair had links with two Far-Right movements including the National Alliance, the American neo-Nazi group that inspired Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and has been called ‘‘the most dangerous hate group in America’’.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre, a civil rights group, published invoices suggesting that Mair bought manuals from the organisation in 1999 on how to make a pipe pistol and improvise munitions. He appeared to have ordered Ich Kampfe (I fight), the book given to all new members of the Nazi Party. He was identified as having subscribed to SA Patriot, a magazine published by a South African pro-apartheid group.
Peters said: ‘‘I never, ever saw him lose his temper. I would have believed he was Father Christmas before I ever thought he was a neoNazi.’’