An MP has been accused of threatening to use acid against a woman she grew jealous of over a friendship with her partner.
Claudia Webbe, 56, denies harassing Michelle Merritt and making a string of intimidating phone calls between September 1, 2018 and April 26 last year.
The MP for Leicester East called Ms Merritt ‘a s**t’ and said she would send naked pictures and videos to her daughters, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.
Jurors were told that Webbe, who now sits in the Commons as an independent MP after being suspended by the Labour Party, became ‘obsessed’ with the 59-year-old and her relationship with Lester Thomas, who Webbe was dating at the time.
Webbe made a series of short silent phone calls from a withheld number to Ms Merritt, who told the court she had known Mr Thomas for more than 15 years and they were ‘good friends’, having previously dated.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, Ms Merritt said: ‘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.
‘When you are being called and no-one answers, it is unnerving, especially as a woman who lives alone.’
Ms Stevens said the ‘harassment escalated in form’ on Mother’s Day in 2019 when Webbe spoke to the alleged victim and asked about her relationship with Mr Thomas.
The alleged victim said Webbe told her she was ‘Lester’s girlfriend’ and then ‘really started shouting’: ‘Why are you contacting Lester?’
She said: ‘She was very, very angry at me. It was loud.
‘She then started calling me a slag and saying friends do not send pictures of their t**t and p***y to other friends, and it culminated in: “You are a s**t and you should be acid.”
‘She confirmed she knew where I lived and would send pictures and videos to my daughters.’
Webbe, however, denies making any such threats.
In 2019, Ms Merritt was so concerned she contacted the police who told Webbe to leave her alone.
But despite being warned by officers in April 2019, the MP 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 Ms Merritt to ‘get out of my relationship’.
She also claimed she had seen all of the alleged victim’s naked pictures, adding: ‘I will show them all of your pictures.’
Ms 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 Ms Merritt but claimed she had said those words to Mr Thomas during the course of an argument in which officers were called.
But prosecutor Susannah Stevens said: ‘The Crown say the argument was over the defendant’s unhappiness with her partner’s relationship with Ms Merritt and this jealousy caused her to threaten Ms Merritt and say deeply distressing things to her.’
Paul Hynes QC, representing Webbe, suggested his client contacted Ms Merritt to tell her she and Mr Thomas should not be breaking Covid-19 lockdown regulations together from the end of March.
He said: ‘I am 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 Ms Webbe complained about that and asked you to stop.
‘You have conducted a little campaign against Ms Webbe, haven’t you, because for whatever reason you did not like the fact she was in a relationship with Lester Thomas?
‘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.’
But Ms Merritt responded that none of this is true.
Webbe, from Islington, north London, denies a single count of harassment and the trial continues.
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