MP Claudia Webb loses appeal against harassment conviction

An MP has lost an appeal against her conviction for harassing a woman who was having a sexual relationship with her then partner.

Claudia Webb was found guilty last year of harassing Michelle Merritt

Claudia Webb, MP for Leicester East, was given a suspended prison sentence for harassing Michelle Merritt between September 2018 and April 2020.

Her appeal was dismissed at Southwark Crown Court on Thursday.

However, the 10-week suspended sentence she received in November was reduced to community service.

Judge Deborah Taylor and two magistrates ruled this should amount to 80 hours - a reduction from the two hundred hours she was originally ordered to complete.

A trial at Westminster Magistrates' Court heard Webb was jealous of Ms Merritt's relationship with Lester Thomas.

The 57-year-old - who stands for her constituency as an independent after being expelled from Labour - made numerous calls to Ms Merritt in a campaign of harassment over 18 months.

Her trial heard on one occasion she made an "angry" call, used a derogatory term, and added: "You should be acid."

It also heard how Webb threatened to send naked images of Ms Merritt to her family and a recording of a call in which she was heard shouting "get out of my relationship".

The appeal hearing heard Ms Merritt had reported being "threatened by a public figure with acid” but received seventeen further phone calls lasting 14 seconds or less from Webb after the MP was warned by police to stop contacting her.

The judge said the court found Webb had not "made a threat to throw acid over" Ms Merritt but that a string of silent phone calls and threats to reveal naked pictures of her had been "a course of conduct which amounted to harassment".

Webb said she split up with Lester Thomas in March 2022

The appeal heard since the trial, Ms Merritt's phone had been examined and downloaded by police, revealing sexual messages between her and Mr Thomas.

Webb’s barrister Helen Law suggested Ms Merritt had "lied" or "misled" the magistrates' court when she said she and Mr Thomas were just "good friends".

But prosecutor Susannah Stevens said: "What was going on between Michelle Merritt and Lester Thomas is unhelpful to the appellant's case because Claudia Webb’s suspicions as to all of that provide her not with a defence but with a motivation."

The MP said she had split up with Mr Thomas in March this year after learning of the messages he had shared with Ms Merritt.

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Analysis by Tony Roe, BBC East Midlands Political Editor

The decision to overturn the custodial element of Claudia Webb’s sentence is significant as it means voters will not get a chance - for now - to say if she should be sacked as an MP, in what is called a recall petition.

We will now have to see if Parliament's Standards Committee decides to act on the conviction.

If she were to be suspended from Parliament for at least ten days, that then be another route for a recall petition which would put Webb’s future in the hands of the voters of Leicester East.

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Webb entered the Commons in 2019, winning the seat formerly held by Keith Vaz.

Following her failure to overturn the conviction, she said she was "deeply shocked".

She said: "As I said in court and repeat now, I have never threatened violence nor would I."

Webb’s former party urged her to quit as an MP in the wake of the verdict.

A Labour spokesperson said: "The allegations, in this case, we’re extremely serious.

"The Labour Party rightly expects elected representatives to maintain the very highest standards at all times.

"Ms Webb should now resign so the people of Leicester East can get the representation they deserve."