Woman sentenced to 3 and a half years in prison for sending email threats to MP Naz Shah
Sundas Alam, 30, admitted a number of charges at York Crown Court last October, relating to sending death threats to the Bradford West MP
Last updated 14th Jan 2022
A Bradford woman has been sentenced to 3 and half years in prison for sending email death threats to a Bradford MP.
She'll be on licence for 10 years.
Sundas Alam, 30, admitted a number of charges at York Crown Court last October, relating to sending death threats to Bradford West MP, Naz Shah.
Alam had been given a caution in 2014 for malicious messages to a man and social services in Wakefield were repeatedly contacted with fake allegations of abuse to the man’s children.
Shah said she dialled 999 and evacuated her children from her home in the middle of the night following an "immediate firearms threat".
The shadow minister for community cohesion said she has had many death threats before, but this was the first time she has ever dialled 999.
The MP said it was made worse from Alam using cloned email addresses which led to an entirely innocent family being dragged out of their beds by armed police and questioned for 20 hours by officers responding to her alert.
In court, the prosecution said that the children from the family whose house was raided 'have needed counselling to get over the events' from when their house was raided by police.
The father's statement read 'when arrested I saw my life flash before my eyes. For weeks my children would not speak and would just cry when we tried to explain to them. Nothing will ever be the same again'.
The family have now moved house, to make life easier for their children.
Bradford West MP, Naz Shah said:
"It's traumatic for the children who had to wake up and leave the house, and when I went to see the family after the young child was ill as a result.
"It does impact on my wider family, because they think do you really want to do this job, is it really worth the risk? Yes, I shouldn't be taking a risk to my life, but the job is a huge, huge privilege.
"I'm not convinced that parliament has an understanding of the scale of it. When my case came up, a lot of other MP's said this has happened to me, and they'll be many more."