A man has been jailed for three months for emailing Jess Phillips abusive messages including that she would “burn until her skin is no more”, which the MP said changed her life “immeasurably” and limited her freedom.
Nabil Arif, 36, was sentenced to 12 weeks for the abusive messages, which prosecutors said began with the start of the Israel-Gaza war in October 2023 and continued through to February 2024.
In one message, Arif, from Birmingham, told the MP “hell is real, and you will burn”. In a final email, which prompted Phillips to report Arif to the police in February, he called the MP “pathetic” and said she would “burn until her skin is no more”.
Phillips, who has been MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015, expressed fear that Arif’s aggression could escalate and result in her coming to physical harm. The MP said the fear had changed her life “immeasurably” and “limited my freedom and my ability to do my job closely with the public as I used to do”.
Arif was convicted of sending, by public communication network, an offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing message at Birmingham magistrates court on Monday.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Arif was sentenced to 12 weeks in custody on Monday after a trial at the same court on 29 July and was also made the subject of a restraining order, barring him from contacting Phillips.
Phillips, who has been vocal about the threats, violence and abuse she has faced since becoming an MP, was one of eight frontbenchers who resigned in November in order to back an SNP motion for a ceasefire in Gaza, in defiance of the Labour party line.
About 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s 7 October assault that triggered the war, according to Israeli tallies. Close to 41,000 people have been killed by Israel’s military offensive, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
