Suspect arrested after Tory MP reported ‘abusive and threatening’ phone call

A 46-year-old man has been arrested after MP Mike Freer received a threatening phone call last week.

The Conservative minister announced at the start of this month that he will stand down at the next general election after a series of death threats and an arson attack on his constituency office.

He said that “by the skin of my teeth I avoided being murdered” by Ali Harbi Ali, who went on to kill Southend West MP Sir David Amess.

The Metropolitan Police said they received a report from Mr Freer’s office on February 1 that he had received “an abusive and threatening phone call” the previous day.

The suspect was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of malicious communication and has been taken to a north London police station for questioning.

Mr Freer said: “I’m grateful that the police acted swiftly to the latest threat.

“It’s just another example of what is becoming, sadly, the norm for many MPs and their staff.”

A separate investigation into an arson attack at the MP’s office in Finchley, north London, on Christmas Eve is ongoing, with a man and a woman charged with arson with intent to endanger life.

The two incidents are not being linked, police said.

Detective Superintendent Will Lexton-Jones, from the local policing team in north-west London, said: “It is vitally important for elected officials and their staff they can be confident in their safety and security, and we are committed to ensuring this.

“Today’s arrest sends a clear message we will not tolerate threats or aggression of any kind towards elected officials. We will deal quickly and robustly with such offences.

“We are in regular contact with MPs and other elected officials and fully recognise the growing concerns they are telling us about their safety, and, as you would expect, we have kept Mr Freer MP updated throughout this investigation, including today’s arrest.”

Mr Freer, who has served as the MP for London’s Finchley and Golders Green seat since 2010, told the Daily Mail last week that he could no longer put his family through the anxiety over his safety.

“There comes a point when the threats to your personal safety become too much,” he told the newspaper.

He and his staff now wear stab vests when attending scheduled public events in his constituency after they learned that Ali had watched his Finchley office before going on to knife Sir David to death during a constituency surgery in 2021.

Mr Freer told the newspaper: “I was very lucky that, actually, on the day I was due to be in Finchley, I happened to change my plans and came into Whitehall.

“Otherwise who knows whether I would have been attacked or survived an attack. He said he came to Finchley to attack me.”

The MP said he had also received threats from the group Muslims Against Crusades “about coming to stab me” and found “mock Molotov cocktails on the office steps”.

Mr Freer, who has pro-Israel views and represents a heavily Jewish constituency, said antisemitism could not be “divorced” from the intimidation.

However police have said the arson attack is not being treated as a hate crime.