Cox widower wept at flashback news

SLAIN MP Jo Cox’s widower shook “uncontrollably” when he heard about the murder of Sir David Amess.

Brendan Cox revealed he wept on being told the news, and the memories led to a “very physical reaction”.

The 42-year-old said he was transported back to the moment in 2016 when he received a phone call about his wife’s murder, after a colleague contacted him to deliver details of Friday’s attack in Leigh-on-Sea.

Mr Cox was hit by a “wave of emotion, of sadness, of sorrow for what his family would be going through”.

It was “hard” to digest the news that “the worst possible thing you could ever imagine in your life” had just happened again to someone else, he said.

Mr Cox explained: “I found it extremely difficult to function for a while. I picked the kids up from school and went away for the weekend, just to try and get away from it all.”

As with the legacy left by his wife, he said the huge public reaction to the killing will help Sir David’s family recover in a world that “feels incredibly unkind”.

He also insisted that the message of unity from Sir David’s family will be crucial, as society needs to change its response to terrorism, saying: “It’s about denying terrorists what they want. They want that division so let’s give them togetherness.”

Mum-of-two Mrs Cox, then the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, was shot three times and repeatedly stabbed by a neo-Nazi terrorist in Birstall, West Yorks, before a constituency surgery.

Her sister Kim Leadbeater, 45, was elected the constituency’s MP this year.