Man behind threatening phone call to MP Mike Freer avoids jail

James Phillips, of Brampton Park Road in Wood Green, last month admitted making the call to the office of Tory MP Mike Freer on January 31.

The 46-year-old reportedly said: “Make sure to tell the police I’m coming for you, you c***, not just Mike Freer but you as well.”

The threatening message came after two previous calls from the same number that day, on which “heavy breathing” could be heard.

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Mike Freer has announced that he will not stand at the next general election (Image: PA)

Phillips’ phone calls were made on the same day Freer, MP for Finchley and Golders Green, announced he would be standing down at the next general election.

Freer said his decision not to run again came after a series of death threats and an arson attack on his constituency office in Ballards Lane, Finchley.

At Westminster Magistrates’ Court yesterday (March 6), Phillips, who was being sentenced for an offensive or menacing telephone call and for assaulting a police officer, was handed a 14-month community order, requiring him to undergo 25 rehabilitation activity days.

District Judge Neeta Minhas also imposed a restraining order, which bans the 46-year-old from contacting Freer directly or indirectly for two years.

Freer’s personal assistant said Phillips had been calling and emailing with abusive messages for approximately three or four years, the court heard.

But Rita Patel, defending, said her client does not accept that he made communications of a threatening nature previously.

Phillips’ last conviction, prior to the offences for which he was sentenced yesterday, was in 2016 for common assault.

While the judge acknowledged the eight-year gap in offending, she said Phillips had “no end of offences of violence and making threats to other people” up to 2016.

After the 46-year-old was arrested and taken into custody, he attempted to punch a police officer who was trying to bring him out of a cell for an interview.

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The defendant will have to pay the officer he tried to punch £200 in compensation.

Yesterday, Phillips’ defence lawyer also referenced his childhood trauma and possible mental health issues in mitigation, and told the court that the officer received no injuries.

In Freer’s announcement that he would stand down at the next general election, he said that “by the skin of my teeth I avoided being murdered” by Ali Harbi Ali, who went on to kill Southend West MP Sir David Amess.

The MP and his staff now wear stab vests when attending scheduled public events in his constituency.

Reporting by PA.