Jealousy drove Labour MP Claudia Webbe to threaten partner’s friend with revenge porn
Labour MP Claudia Webbe allegedly made a string of phone calls to a women in a campaign of harassment between September and April last year.
The MP threatened to send naked pictures of 59-year-old Michelle Merritt to her family because she was jealous of her friendship with her partner, a court heard today.
During one, the MP for Leicester East, called Merritt “a slag”, threatened her with acid and said she would send naked pictures and videos to her daughters, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.
Prosecutor Susannah Stevens said Webbe, who sits in the Commons as an independent after being suspended by the Labour Party, was in a relationship with Lester Thomas at the time.
“The reason for the harassment would appear to be the fact that Michelle Merritt was friends with Lester Thomas and this was an issue for the defendant Claudia Webbe,” she said.
Silent phone calls
The court heard Webbe made a series of short silent phone calls from a withheld number to Merritt, who told the court she had known Thomas for more than 15 years and they were “good friends”, having previously dated.
“There was a pattern that whenever I had even met with Lester Thomas, if we had gone out for a drink or something, there would be a phone call,” she said, giving evidence from behind a screen.
“When you are being called and no-one answers, it’s unnerving, especially as a woman who lives alone.”
Stevens said the “harassment escalated in form” on Mother’s Day, March 31 2019, when Webbe spoke to the alleged victim and asked about her relationship with Thomas.
“This appears to be the defendant’s obsession – the fact Merritt would not stop seeing her partner,” said the prosecutor.
The alleged victim said Webbe told her she was “Lester’s girlfriend” and then “really started shouting, ‘Why are you contacting Lester?’
“She was very, very angry at me. It was loud,” she said.
“She then started calling me a slag and saying friends don’t send pictures of their tits and pussy to other friends, and it culminated in, ‘You’re a slag and you should be acid’.
“She confirmed she knew where I lived and would send pictures and videos to my daughters.”
Webbe denies making any such threats.
Executive assistant Merritt wept as she described how she was left “very shocked and very fearful” and called police, saying: “I have been threatened by a public figure with acid over the phone.”
But despite being warned by officers in April 2019, Webbe allegedly continued to make further calls to the complainant, who recorded one after ringing her back on April 25 last year.
In the call, played in court, Webbe is heard repeatedly telling Merritt to “get out of my relationship”.
She also says: “I have seen all of your naked pictures,” adding: “I will show them all of your pictures.”
Merritt, who told Webbe during the call that she would contact the press, said she was left feeling “scared, fearful, afraid and nervous”.
The court heard Webbe later accepted to police that she had spoken to Merritt but claimed she had said those words to Thomas during the course of an argument in which officers were called.
But the prosecutor said: “The Crown say the argument was over the defendant’s unhappiness with her partner’s relationship with Merritt and this jealousy caused her to threaten Merritt and say deeply distressing things to her.”
Paul Hynes QC, representing Webbe, suggested his client contacted Merritt to tell her she and Thomas should not be breaking Covid-19 lockdown regulations together from the end of March.
“I’m going to suggest you were obviously and knowingly breaking lockdown regulations with Lester Thomas from the end of March to the end of April and Webbe complained about that and asked you to stop,” he said.
The complainant replied: “Webbe did not ask me this question.”
Hynes said: “You have conducted a little campaign against Webbe, haven’t you, because for whatever reason you didn’t like the fact she was in a relationship with Lester Thomas?”
“You are incorrect,” said Merritt.
“You know she is vulnerable because she is a public figure and that is why you said you were going to go to the press.”
The alleged victim replied: “No.”
Webbe, from Islington, north London, denies a single count of harassment.
She stood in the dock wearing a black suit, speaking to confirm her name, date of birth and address, before sitting next to her solicitor in the well of the court.
Webbe entered the Commons in December 2019, winning the seat formerly held by Keith Vaz, the Labour veteran who retired from Parliament in the wake of a scandal.
She was a political adviser to then-London mayor Ken Livingstone, worked as a councillor in Islington between 2010 and 2018 and was a member of Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee.