Helen Hayes has publicly spoken for the first time about her harassment ordeal by a constituent who bombarded her with emails about penises.
Standing to be reelected as Dulwich and West Norwood MP, Helen Hayes says her inbox was bombarded with more than 500 emails from the man between between September 2018 and April 2019. He had previously been banned from her weekly constituency walk-ins after concerns over his behaviour.
The daily email barrage continued even after he had a police warning, and included explicit images of a naked man, and a picture of the Cerne Abbas chalk-man; a giant outline of a naked man with an erect penis carved into a Dorset hillside.
The constituent was given a prison sentence. In a separate harassment case, another person has been handed an injunction.
She told the News that although she regularly receives threats, abuse and disturbing emails, safety concerns had not led to her considering standing down.
“On a day-to-day level I’ve never felt that I had to organise life around what the worst person might possibly do because most people aren’t like that.”
Neil Coyle has previously told the News he has received death threats and has to carry a personal alarm but Harriet Harman has told the News that she does not experience the level of abuse or threats experienced by her colleagues.