Sir David Amess: Man arrested over MP Chris Bryant death threat

A man has been arrested in connection with a death threat being sent to Labour's Rhondda MP Chris Bryant.

South Wales Police said a 76-year-old from Pontycymer, Bridgend county, was arrested on suspicion of malicious communications.  

Officers were called at about 16:30 BST on 16 October after reports of malicious communications being sent.

Mr Bryant said he got the death threat after calling for people to be kinder following Sir David Amess's death.

He said he had faced abuse every year he had been an MP, adding: "The year before it was anti-vaxxers, the year before we had Brexit campaigners plastering the word traitor all over my office."

Speaking to Claire Summers on Radio Wales Breakfast, he said MPs were usually more reluctant to go to police about abuse as the they knew how busy officers were.

He added: "I hope everyone dials down the nastiness in politics. It's been six years of everyone calling each other traitor. That needs to end, we need to be nicer to each other.

"It's pretty sour. It's more sour now than I've known it in 20 years."

Mr Bryant, who is gay, added: "I think it's women, black and ethnic minority and gay MPs who get the brunt of it, but everybody gets some of this."

Meanwhile, Conservative Member of the Senedd (MS) for South East Wales, Natasha Asghar, revealed she had previously been held by the throat while working at her late father's constituency office.

She told Jason Mohammad on BBC Radio Wales the incident happened after her politician father - Mohammad "Oscar" Asghar - had left Plaid Cymru and joined the Welsh Conservatives in 2009.

Ms Asghar said the incident happened in about 2016 or 2017 and showed "how long people's grievances lasted".

She said: "He grabbed me by the throat and I remember him pinning me against the wall and he said 'I want to know why he left the party, why did he cross the floor?'

"There are so many angry people out there, and I think people all have an opinion about something.

"People often forget that yes, we are politicians, but we are people as well, we have families, we have friends, we have colleagues, we have staff and it affects them as well."

Jane Dodds MS, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, told the programme she was confronted by protesters when leaving the Senedd after voting on Covid pass plans.

She said: "They surrounded my car, banged on my car, bent back my mirrors, laid across the car, shouted abuse at me and put their posters on the car.

"It felt very, very frightening."

The death of Conservative MP Sir David, who was stabbed at his constituency surgery in Essex, is being treated as a terrorist incident by the Metropolitan Police.

A 25-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder after the attack at a church in Leigh-on-Sea.

Whitehall officials confirmed the man's name as Ali Harbi Ali, and said he was a British man of Somali heritage.

Detectives are continuing to hold the 25-year-old man at a London police station and have until Friday to question him.

The BBC has been told he was referred to the counter-terrorist Prevent scheme some years ago, but was never a formal subject of interest to MI5.

Police have also been asked to review security for MPs after the killing on Friday.