Troll who emailed Keir Starmer calling him a ‘gutless dirty b*****d’ spared jail

A ‘prolific emailer’ who sent Sir Keir Starmer a barrage of messages ‘full of abusive profanities and threats of violence’ has walked free.

Mark Tew, 63, called the Prime Minister a ‘gutless dirty bastard’ in one message, Southwark Crown Court heard.

He also targeted several barristers during his nuisance campaign between March and November 2021.

Tew was found guilty of seven counts of sending an electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety.

He denied and was cleared of an additional count relating to former Home Secretary Priti Patel.

The emails were not read by the MPs themselves but were intercepted by their staff.

He admitted six counts of failure to surrender himself to the court after he did not turn up for six of his court dates.

Mr Tew received a sentence of 17 months in prison, suspended for two years, and four months of curfew at his home monitored by an electric tag.

He was also given a restraining order forbidding him from contacting the Prime Minister, three barristers, another MP and a Lord he had sent offensive messages to.

Sahil Sinha, prosecuting, said Tew had a ‘clear awareness of his wrongdoing’ in sending the emails.

Mr Sinha said that although the recipients did not see the messages, there was serious harm done not only to their employees who did see them but to society at large, as such messages might ‘discourage others from seeking public office which has an impact on our democracy’.

He also pointed out that several of the offences took place after Tew had been arrested for his first offence.

Stella Harris, defending, said he accepted full responsibility for delaying proceedings, but it was partly due to his poor physical and mental health.

The court heard Tew suffers from anxiety and persecutory type of personality disorder, which may have contributed to his offences.

Ms Harris added: ‘At the time of the offending Mr Tew was drinking too much. Since then he has cut back.’

The judge, Mr Justice Murray, also accepted his diagnosis with autistic traits may have meant he didn’t understand the impact his messages would have on recipients.

He said Mr Tew was a ‘prolific emailer who would often send emails to politicians and, later, barristers to raise issues and complaints he had with them and others’.

‘The tone of many of those emails was frequently rude and discourteous but politicians in particular are expected to be thick-skinned and so while those emails were unpleasant they were not we would suggest criminal.

‘The eight emails that this case is concerned with were different. Their content was more than just rude and discourteous but contained either a grossly offensive message or indeed threats or both.’

The judge said Mr Tew’s offences were made more serious because of the timing.

‘Just a few days before your first emails the MP David Amess was stabbed to death in his constituency,’ he said.

‘Public anxiety around the safety of politicians was therefore particularly high.’

The first of Tew’s messages were sent on 23 January 2021 to Priti Patel MP, who was at that time the Home Secretary in the last Conservative government.

Police seized his phone, and found emails that had been sent to Starmer, as well as then Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and former defence secretary Ben Wallace.

In one email sent to the then leader of the opposition, on 21 March 2021, Tew wrote: ‘You should be beaten up Starmer, stabbed to death, shot to dead.

‘You gutless yellow bastard Starmer. Tell the truth you miserable uneducated tosser.’

The police kept Tew’s phone, and in October 2021 he started using a new email address to contact politicians and barristers.

Tew sent an email on 23 October saying Mr Trimmer and another barrister, Guy Bowden, would be beheaded.

In another email sent to Starmer on 19 November he referred to James Lewis KC, the barrister who represented the UK government in its attempt to have Julian Assange extradited to America.

A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said: ‘Elected officials must be able to fulfil their democratic roles without the fear of harassment or violence hanging over them.

‘That’s why the CPS takes these types of cases incredibly seriously and will always seek to prosecute offenders like Tew who threaten politicians.’

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