Man found guilty of stalking South Staffordshire MP

A man has been found guilty of stalking former education secretary Sir Gavin Williamson.

The Conservative MP said he felt "incredibly threatened" by Simon Parry who "persistently followed" him on May 24 and June 14.

Parry, 45, of no fixed abode, was convicted of one count of stalking.

He had also denied impersonating a police officer by flashing what Sir Gavin said appeared to be a warrant card and making comments about arresting him on the June date.

District judge Tan Ikram found there was no case to answer with respect to the police impersonation charge because the evidence was "so poor".

The judge said: "I am satisfied that those two occasions taken collectively amount to harassment of Sir Gavin.

"The defendant thinks there is humour in relation to what he does. He uploads it onto social media.

"Objectively he ought to have known the course of conduct amounted to harassment. I am sure of that."

Giving evidence earlier on Wednesday, Sir Gavin told how Parry began following him along streets in Whitehall on two occasions after the MP walked past a protest area opposite Downing Street.

Of the May incident, Sir Gavin told the court he heard Parry making comments about vaccinations while walking in "close proximity" to him.

Asked how he felt at the time, Sir Gavin said: "It was someone who was quite aggressive towards you, someone who was not really actually wanting to have a discussion, but rather express their views or their anger or their dissatisfaction, actually. It felt very unpleasant."

He added: "Of course as an MP you get a lot of people approaching you all the time.

"People are often approaching you with concerns they want to discuss... (but) done in a very different manner to that.

"You felt as if this was part of intimidation or sort of trying to make a publicity work or something along those lines."

Of the June incident, Sir Gavin said he heard Parry making comments about vaccinations again and also about "genocide", and eventually realised that the comments were directed at him.

The MP kept walking and was speaking with a constituent on the phone, he told the court.

He called Parry's "persistence" in following him from the Parliamentary estate towards Euston "quite disturbing".

"It was quite evident that this individual was hostile to myself," Sir Gavin said.

"I was talking to a constituent who sadly that day had had to have their dog put down."

He continued: "Why should I, you know, not do what I thought was my job because this very aggressive person was harassing me and pursuing me?"

The politician then explained how he believed Parry flashed a warrant card and spoke about arresting him.

"At this point, it is getting to feel kind of more scary because it's a confined space," he said.

"I can hear constant references to police, police, police, and saying about arresting me and at this stage... the defendant then shows what looks like a Metropolitan Police badge, but it was just a crest."

"I felt incredibly threatened by it," he added of the incident in June.

Sir Gavin said he asked the constituent he was phoning if he could continue speaking with her as a "comfort" to himself before Parry eventually stopped following him.

Asked what impact the incidents had, Sir Gavin said: "When someone is acting in such an extreme way... you don't really know what they're capable of doing.

"You sadly do hear of instances where people have used a knife or such thing in the past, so you get quite fretful as to whether you're in that type of scenario and an incident like this just makes you more fearful."

During cross-examination, Sir Gavin accepted that Parry did not say he was a police officer and the MP said he did not actually believe he was one.

The court heard Parry was wearing a bright blue Superman T-shirt and shorts that day.

In a police interview following his arrest on June 15, Parry said he was not a member of a police force and that he had been referring to being able to make a citizen's arrest when directing comments to Sir Gavin.

He also told officers that he did not have a police badge but flashed the politician a badge that read "law enforcement", which had been given to him by the political organisation Save Us Now.

The defendant denied intending to harass, distress, humiliate or intimidate the politician over the two dates when he gave evidence.

He appeared at court with Piers Corbyn, the brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Parry will be sentenced at Westminster Magistrates' Court on November 16.

Sir Gavin has been MP for South Staffordshire since 2010 and served in cabinet as defence secretary before becoming education secretary under Boris Johnson in 2019.

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