A 38-year-old man has been jailed for sending an “utterly deplorable” email to safeguarding minister Jess Phillips.
Jack Bennett, from Seaton, Devon, today pleaded guilty to sending malicious communications to three people – including the Birmingham Yardley MP – at Exeter Magistrates’ Court.
Bennett sent the email to Ms Phillips on 2 January – one day after Elon Musk called the MP a “rape genocide apologist” and said she “deserves to be in prison” for denying requests for a public inquiry into child sexual exploitation in Oldham.
He also sent racist and offensive emails to London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan in February 2024, and to Matt Twist, the assistant commissioner at the Met Police, in April 2024.
Bennett has been sentenced to 28 weeks in prison.
District Judge Stuart Smith said the email to Ms Philips had caused the MP “great distress”.
“[She] was concerned for your potential to escalate or to encourage others for violence against her, having in her mind the murder of her colleague Jo Cox,” he said.
Bennett’s messages began after he was “caught up” in online right-wing propaganda during the Covid-19 pandemic, the court heard.
Appearing for the defence, Caroline Salvatore said Bennett had no previous convictions, presented as being neurodivergent and was “largely socially isolated”.
“He was encouraged to become incensed at various issues and he found their phrases became part of his vocabulary,” she said.
Ms Salvatore said Bennett did not act until after his father died in 2023, which was a “triggering event”.
She said he was “genuinely motivated by the perceived incompetence of the people he sent emails” but he accepted he was trying to be offensive and does “realise how he was wrong”.
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The judge said the 38-year-old’s email to Sir Sadiq “purposely sought to disparage, insult and offend him based on his ethnicity and Asian heritage”.
“The contents of your communications to all three was utterly deplorable, foul and abusive,” Judge Smith said. “Saturated in hate and intolerance and shamelessly racist and offensive.
“Your angry, poisonous and hateful rhetoric discloses the real disdain you held for ethnic minorities, targeting especially Muslims and immigrants in your abusive tirades.”
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Bennett pleaded guilty to four counts of sending malicious communications and one of using a public communication network to send offensive emails.
A prosecution request for restraining orders to be put in place for five years was granted by the judge.
