London, Aug 20: A 21-year-old man has been sentenced to 14 weeks’ imprisonment and a two-year restraining order for sending racist death threats to Rishi Sunak in June last year, when he was still the British prime minister.Liam Shaw from Birkenhead in Merseyside, north-west England, pleaded guilty to sending two threatening and offensive emails to the public parliamentary email address of Sunak, MP for Richmond and Northallerton in Yorkshire, the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
The emails were spotted by the British Indian leader’s personal assistant and reported to the police.
“Liam Shaw took to his phone that night to send racist and threatening messages to a person in an extremely important public office,” said Matthew Dixon, Senior Crown Prosecutor at CPS Mersey Cheshire.
“Racist abuse has no place, anywhere, in this day and age,” he said.
Police traced the email, sent via a mobile phone, to Shaw’s email address and to a hostel where he was staying in Birkenhead. He was arrested by police on September 3, 2024, and when the allegations were put to him, he claimed, “I don’t even remember sending an email. I was probably drunk.”
He was then taken to a police station in Liverpool and interviewed, but remained silent throughout, according to the CPS, which went on to charge him with two counts of sending by a public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, or menacing message.
Last month, when Shaw appeared before Liverpool Magistrates’ Court to face those charges, he pleaded guilty to both counts.
He was sentenced last Wednesday at the same court to 14 weeks’ imprisonment for both counts to run concurrently, with the sentence suspended for 12 months under strict stipulations. Shaw must also complete 20 days of a rehabilitation activity and a six-month drug rehabilitation course.
“Direct access to your constituency MP is a cornerstone of democracy. Misusing that access is detrimental to the democratic process. Clearly, it is a highly aggravating factor for the offence,” District Judge Timothy Boswell said at the sentencing hearing.
The CPS had also applied for a restraining order, which the court imposed for two years. It states that Shaw must have no contact with Sunak or his constituency office for at least that period of time.
“The work of members of Parliament is extremely important and the police and the Crown Prosecution Service play their part in keeping them safe and able to do their work without fear. The Crown Prosecution Service has always, and will continue to, safeguard a person’s right to freedom of expression,” said CPS’ Matthew Dixon.
“But this is clearly a case where the comments made were utterly beyond the boundary of what is tolerable in a fair, just and multi-racial society, and passed into the realm of criminality,” he added.