A man has been found guilty of sending a menacing message to health minister Will Quince including the veiled threat to “watch yourself”.
Wayland Sothcott, 58, fired off the email to the MP for Colchester at 1.22am last November, saying he had wanted to “confront” him and dubbing him a “soy boy”.
In the email, he said his wife had feared he would “beat” the MP “to a pulp”, and he signed it off with the words “watch yourself”, City of London magistrates court heard.
Mr Quince’s Parliamentary assistant Darius Laws picked up the email, and said it left him anxious and fearing for their safety.
Referencing the murders of MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, Mr Laws said he now carries a panic alarm with him wherever he goes and he was concerned the message from Sothcott may lead to genuine violence.
“For all I knew, he might be a body-builder and able to beat Will Quince to a pulp”, he said.
“That’s not a nice set of words to see.”
Sothcott claimed the email was a botched attempt at satire, and suggested Mr Quince would have found the message “funny” if he had read it.
“Darius has just freaked out and hid in his office holding his alarm”, he said in evidence, claiming he believed the MP would read the emails before his staff.
But Deputy District Judge Patricia Evans found Sothcott guilty of sending a menacing message, contrary to the Communications Act 2003.
She said Sothcott had made a “gratuitous mention of violence”, and his email was intended as a “veiled threat”.
The court heard Sothcott’s disabled partner had been receiving medical aid at home when Mr Quince, a minister of state in the Department of Health and Social Care, was walking back from lunch with Mr Laws and stopped to talk to the paramedics on the scene about their jobs.
In the early hours of November 13, Sothcott sent an email to Mr Quince’s Parliamentary address, accusing the MP of “delaying” the paramedics.
“When I heard your name, I was ready to come out and confront you”, he wrote.
“My woman told me not to. She imagined I would beat you to a pulp. She seems to think I’m some kind of hero chad.
“Don’t worry, I’m a soy boy like yourself. Watch yourself.”
The court heard “soy boy” is a derogatory slur meaning “soft”, and used to describe someone who backs away from a fight.
Mr Laws said he saw the message on Monday morning, triggering a memory of the day fellow Essex MP Sir David Amess was murdered at a constituency surgery.
“I thought to myself ‘what would I have done if someone had come out and been aggressive to Will’”, he said.
“The inference was Mr Sothcott might come outside and be violent, physically.”
Holding up the personal alarm issued to him after Sir David’s murder, Mr Laws added that he carries it with him at all times since Sothcott’s email.
“As a consequence of the murder of Jo Cox as well as Sir David Amess, we are all a little more careful and conscious that we need to be in a well-lit area, and be with other people, not on our own so much.”
The court heard Sothcott, who lives in Colchester, has sent hundreds of emails to Mr Quince, his constituency MP since 2018, and he was given a police caution in May 2020 for threatening messages saying people would “get what’s coming to them” and adding: “You won’t know what’s coming to you”.
He had previously regularly messaged MPs Bernard Jenkin and Priti Patel when they represented him, he said.
In evidence, Sothcott insisted his November messages to Mr Quince was intended to be “satirical” to “make him aware he was wasting NHS time” when speaking to the paramedics.
He accepted the message could have been better phrased, and could be thought of as menacing.
But he added: “I thought he would find it funny.”
However the judge rejected his explanation, and pointed to the fact Sothcott had said nothing when interviewed by police.
Sothcott pleaded not guilty but was convicted of sending by public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, or menacing message.
He was set free on unconditional bail until a sentencing at Westminster magistrates court on October 25.
