Ex-teacher Kieran Kyle has been jailed for sending the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch emails threatening to shoot her dead. Kyle was sentenced to 20 weeks in prison at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
He sent three emails on 2nd May to the Tory party leader in which he made racist references and claimed to have been in the IRA, the court heard.
The 43-year-old, from Gillingham in Kent, pleaded guilty on 22nd September at Westminster Magistrates’ Court to two counts of sending communications of an indecent or offensive nature.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Badenoch and her husband Hamish said the “malicious communications and targeted harassment” not only had an effect on them, but also undermined “a healthy democracy”. In two of the emails, Kyle had made racist references and written: “I’m ex-IRA, so Bloody Sunday references from you are going to give you trouble,” the court heard.
The messages were sent on the day Badenoch apologised for footage from Bloody Sunday being mistakenly used in a social media clip to criticise a parliamentary Bill on legacy issues in Northern Ireland. The Tory leader had said she did not sign off the video and that it was sent out by “very young people”. The video criticising the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill, posted to her social media channels on 28th April, showed Badenoch saying the Labour legislation would “drag” Troubles veterans back to court.
The court heard Kyle had also sent an email to Badenoch’s husband Hamish on 29th April, which used a racist term and said she had a “big mouth” and he should “put a leash on her”.
Baiju Thittala, defending, told the court Kyle “did not know” who Badenoch was at the time of the offences, adding “he only realised later, once he had sent the emails”. Asked by the judge how Kyle, a former secondary school teacher, could not know who Badenoch was, Thittala said “He just ‘Googled’ it and it came up as the opposition leader.”
The judge said “The first emails were sent to Mr Badenoch, so I don’t think he did not appreciate who Mrs Badenoch was. “So he clearly knew who Mrs Badenoch was because he researched her husband’s details first.”
The judge also handed Kyle a restraining order, meaning he cannot contact Badenoch, her husband or her parliamentary office for five years.
