A ‘dangerous’ prisoner threatened to kill Labour MP Jess Phillips in a letter he sent from his cell.
Rakeem Malik, 54, had previously threatened her as well as other MPs and had already been sentenced for this.
Ms Philiips said the recent letter, which was intercepted before reaching her, threatened to ‘harm and kill’ her.
Malik, a Muslim convert who was born Paul Anthony Harrison, previously sent
letters threatening to eat Theresa May’s corpse, kill Boris Johnson ‘by Christmas’ and bomb Labour MP Rosie Cooper on behalf of ‘Jihadis of England’.He is currently serving a life sentence imposed in 1999 after admitting attempting to murder a ‘cell-mate’ whom he tried to strangle with shoelaces at Merseyside’s Ashworth high security hospital.
Malik appeared by video link at Birmingham Crown Court today where he was sentenced for new offences to five years’ imprisonment – with a five-year extension to his licence.
After the hearing, Ms Phillips – the MP for Birmingham Yardley – said: ‘He’s a dangerous man. I feel resigned to the position of somebody who will for the rest of my life receive threats and potentially have those enacted.’
She said the letters ‘threatening to harm me and kill me’ were intercepted before reaching her.
After Malik was sentenced again on Monday, Ms Phillips said she felt some ‘comfort’ because the police ‘responded incredibly well’ and ‘in light of attacks against Members of Parliament and that an attack on our democracy (is) being taken really seriously’.
She said: ‘I am sort of resigned to the idea that this will keep on happening in my life. I feel less scared about this one because I knew he was already in prison. I can risk manage that.’
She added: ‘I don’t feel this is a man who is coming out of prison any time soon and so I don’t feel any particular risk. I feel pleased that the right thing happened. It is all just tinged with sadness around the fact that people target me because I am a woman.
‘This is a man who had previously written about Jo Cox in his letters. He had been vehement and specific about the fact that I’m a woman. It just makes you feel tired but you have just got to keep on going.’
Malik had previously admitted making a threat to kill, two counts of sending letters with threats and breaching a criminal behaviour order.
His sentence is to run consecutively to another five-year term of imprisonment he is already serving after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to three counts of making threats to kill West Lancashire MP Ms Cooper in May 2019.
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