Huddersfield Daily Examiner

A poignant look back, one year after MP Jo’s senseless murder O

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N JUNE 16 last year, Labour MP Jo Cox jumped out of her car to head to her constituen­cy surgery at a library, when she was brutally murdered by Naziobsess­ed loner Thomas Mair.

A member of her staff, Sandra Major, says: “I saw a man coming towards us and he just shot Jo in the head. Just like that. He didn’t speak a word.

“Then she fell to the ground and he started stabbing her.”

The attack, in the heat of EU referendum campaignin­g, shocked the nation, and left a family grieving for the 41-yearold mother of two.

Nearly a year on, and still in the midst of huge political unrest, this poignant documentar­y tells the story of what happened to Jo through the testimony of those closest to her death.

From the chilling police call from an eyewitness, through to police interviews with Mair as he sat unresponsi­ve and arms folded, it’s a detailed account of that tragic day, as well as a heartfelt tribute from Jo’s friends and family.

Her husband, campaigner Brendan Cox, speaks candidly about receiving the news that his wife had been attacked and thinking, “Just don’t die”.

And there are heartbreak­ing home videos of Jo with their two young children, as Brendan speaks of having to tell them what happened.

He says: “I thought, how do I do Jo proud in making sure that the kids are OK?”

With exclusive access to West Yorkshire Police’s murder investigat­ion, including CCTV footage, there is a forensic exploratio­n of the terrorist attack – Mair shot Jo three times and stabbed her 13 times.

Mair’s activities beforehand are also retraced in chilling detail (he researched rifles and human anatomy), as police try to understand what drove Mair to kill a female MP he had never even met.

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