MP SPEAKS OUT ABOUT 'SCARY' ENCOUNTER WITH PAIR WHO HARASSED HER IN THE STREET

FEW weeks ago, Alex Davies-Jones stepped into a courtroom at Cardiff Magistrates’ Court.

- RUTH MOSALSKI

An MP, and UK Government minister, she is used to speaking in formal settings, but this was different, because she was asked to place her hand on the Bible, give an oath, and then give evidence to a courtroom as a victim of harassment.

Switching the House of Commons for a witness box was something the UK Government's victim minister didn’t want to do, but after a number of incidents she had endured, she says she felt it was important for herself, colleagues and others who one day might enter politics.

She was out campaigning in Treforest in Rhondda Cynon Taf, on June 26 last year, just a few days before the general election, when she saw two people waiting at the place she was due to meet campaigners.

Before that day her office had been targeted with protests held outside, posters stuck to the walls as happened to many of her colleagues but she also knew leaflets were being posted around the constituency about her.

“They were quite insulting and just not very nice, for want of a better description, accusing me of genocide and accusing me of things that weren't true and it was hard to see that,” the Labour MP said.

After the October 7 attacks on Israel in 2023, protests stepped up, and ahead of votes in the UK Parliament there was coordinated action by campaign groups but she says that became “sustained” once the election was called.

Before this, there had been online or email abuse, but this was the first in-person incident she had experienced, which she says felt more acute as it was in her constituency.

“The vast majority of abuse or threats you have are not necessarily from real people or they don’t seem to be real people because they're online,” she said.

“The day it happened we had scheduled our campaigning sessions in advance and this was the last one of the day, and it had been published on the Labour Party website where we were going to be for Labour members to join.