Kemi Badenoch has spoken out about the death threats she received from an ex-IRA member.
The Conservative leader said a string of threatening messages were sent to her and her family.
Kieran Kyle, 43, pleaded guilty in September to sending communications of an indecent or offensive nature to Badenoch and her family and will be sentenced later this month.
Badenoch was speaking after the suspect in the murder of MP Ann Widdecombe was charged with planning terrorist acts against Nigel Farage.
She told the : ‘He was sending messages not just to be but also my family members.
‘I just think that whether it’s me or Nigel Farage or even Keir Starmer who had his home fire bombed that there is a threat to politicians that is increasing. We just need to crack down on this.
‘What I want the public to know is that my priority is their safety. MPs have often been threatened in this way but we must not let that stop us from doing their jobs.
‘It’s really tough but you just have to get on with it. Every person who sends an abusive message – they think they’re just getting something off their chest. But the cumulative impact puts a lot of people off politics. I’m not going to be put off’.
In September, Westminster Magistrates Court heard that Kyle wrote to the Conservative Party leader’s Parliament email address: ‘When I was in the IRA I would have shot you f dead.’
He also sent an email to Mrs Badenoch’s husband Hamish which used racist references.
The messages were sent on the day Badenoch apologised for footage from Bloody Sunday being mistakenly used in a social media clip to criticise a Bill on legacy issues in Northern Ireland.
Kyle pleaded guilty to two counts of sending communication of an indecent or offensive nature and Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring told him a custodial sentence ‘is a real option’.
He was granted to bail to be sentenced at the same court on October 29.
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