Who is suspended MP Mike Amesbury?

MP Mike Amesbury is due to be sentenced later for assault by beating after a video emerged showing him punching a man to the ground in his Cheshire constituency.

Who is he, what happened, and how has his political career played out?

Mike Amesbury is the MP for Runcorn and Helsby in Cheshire.

He was elected as a Labour MP but was suspended by the party in October 2024 when CCTV footage emerged of him punching a man in the Cheshire town of Frodsham.

In footage shared widely on social media, Amesbury could be heard shouting: "You won't threaten the MP ever again, will you?"

He admitted the charge in court on 16 January 2025.

Born in the Wythenshawe area of Manchester on 6 May 1969, he said in an interview shortly after being elected to Parliament that he had joined Labour at the age of about 17 when his family were living in Castleford, Yorkshire.

He said the miners' strikes were a key part of his motivation.

In his maiden speech to the House of Commons, he said his father was a carpet fitter and then a publican and his mother cleaned caravans and served school dinners.

He said he became the first in his family to get a degree and worked as a careers adviser.

"As a lad born in Wythenshawe, Manchester, I never envisaged that I would have the honour of sitting on these green benches," he said.

On his website, he said his Labour politics were shaped by his working class background.

In 2014, he wrote in a local newspaper about having depression and being prescribed anti-depressants.

In 2023, a man was given a restraining order after being found guilty of stalking and harrassing him.

After the conviction, Amesbury said the situation had resulted in him feeling "that little bit more anxious".

He is married with a son.

Amesbury was first elected as a councillor for Manchester City Council for the area of Fallowfield in 2006.

From 2008 to 2012, he was the authority's executive member for culture and leisure.

During that time, he worked for some well-known Labour politicians.

He spent just over a year working as a senior parliamentary adviser to Ashton-under-Lyne MP Angela Rayner and then a period working for Andy Burnham first while he was an MP and later during his campaign to become the first mayor of Greater Manchester.

In 2017 he was first elected to Parliament, winning the seat of Weaver Vale from the Conservatives.

He held the seat until it was abolished before the 2024 election.

During his time as Weaver Vale MP, he held a number of shadow ministerial positions, including shadow housing minister and shadow local government minister.

He also introduced a private members' bill to give schools guidance on uniform costs in 2020, which became law a year later and enforced from September 2022.

At the 2024 general election, he was elected to the newly-created seat of Runcorn and Helsby receiving a majority of just under 15,000.

This could all depend on his sentence.

If Amesbury receives a custodial sentence, even if suspended, after any appeals have been exhausted or the appeal period has elapsed, a recall petition would be triggered.

If 10% of his constituents sign that petition that would force a by-election.

However, an MP losing their seat as a result of a recall petition does not stop them from standing in any resulting by-election.

People are disqualified from standing as an MP if they receive a prison sentence of more than one year.

But the charge Amesbury has admitted carries a maximum sentence of six months' imprisonment or an unlimited fine.

And, if he does not receive a prison sentence, he cannot be forced to resign. There has been an example of this in recent years.

The former Labour MP Claudia Webbe was convicted of harassment and, as her sentence was reduced to community service on appeal in 2022, she remained as an independent MP until losing to the Conservatives in the 2024 general election.

Read more stories from Cheshire on the BBC and follow BBC North West on X. For more local politics coverage, BBC Politics North West is on BBC One on Sunday at 10:00am and on BBC iPlayer.