Cabinet member reveals online troll 'threatened to burn down my house with my kids inside'
19 October 2021, 08:30
MP reveals some of the online abuse she has been subjected to
One Conservative minister has revealed the shocking scale of abuse she has received online as MPs call for a crackdown.
International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan has said she once received threats to burn down her house with her children inside, as MPs' safety comes under question following the killing of Sir David Amess.
She told LBC's Nick Ferrari: "The online trolling that I've had, I've had a certain amount, I've had to have someone arrested who was threatening to burn down my house when my children were in it.
"These things are ghastly and entirely wrong, and our police forces work incredibly hard to support us as parliamentarians and to protect our families, but we are going to keep looking at that."
A Conservative former minister has urged MPs to "toughen up" the Online Harms Bill as he proposed "David's law" in memory of Sir David Amess.
Mark Francois said Sir David had "become increasingly concerned about what he called the toxic environment in which MPs, particularly female MPs, were having to operate in".
