MP got abusive email during debate on misogyny
BIRMINGHAM MP Jess Phillips has spoken out about the “hatred of women” in the country after receiving an abusive email while she was appearing on the BBC’s Politics Live.
The MP for Birmingham Yardley, who is the Labour Party’s Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding, was on the programme to discuss the possibility of lawmakers in England and Wales making misogyny a criminal offence.
As she spoke, she was targeted with a vile email which she read out live on the show.
She said: “I’m just going to say something that’s happened while I’ve been on your TV programme. Obviously I’m in front of my computer screen and I can see the emails that come in.
“Because I’m on the telly right now, I’ve received an email, the tagline of which is ‘you dirty bought & paid for w **** ’.
“That won’t be the only message I get because I’m currently on the television. If I appear on anything this is the kind of thing I get.
“If I was to take that to the police now, as I have done in numerous cases of abuse and harassment against me... I have in fact successfully had someone convicted of racially aggravated abuse towards me.
“Because of the nature of the racism in the abuse, that person is currently in prison and, even though that person had talked about my violent and brutal rape in those messages, I couldn’t take him on any of the grounds of the fact that he hated me because I was a woman.
“There is a fundamental flaw in the way that our legal system works at the moment that doesn’t put anywhere near enough of the mitigation onto the hatred of women.”
She added: “I also want somebody who sent this email with their name perfectly clearly calling me a w **** not to be able to just get away with that.”
The MP later took to Twitter to thank people for their support after the appalling incident.
She wrote: “Want to thank the thousands of people who have emailed and messaged on here and elsewhere to send lovely kind messages. Most people are bloody marvellous.”
Tony Eckersley was sentenced to 28 months in prison in April last year after sending Ms Phillips more than 300 abusive and threatening emails – including one describing it as “appropriate” for her to be killed in a terrorist attack on the House of Commons.
He claimed it was fine to send racial slurs and messages calling Ms Phillips a ‘‘c***’’ and a ‘‘treasonous cow’’ under his right to ‘‘freedom of expression’’.