Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire says she’s suffered death threats and hate mail
Andrea Jenkyns has spoken about frightening incidents she says she’s suffered as a politician.
Speaking at a Reform UK press conference on keeping women safe, the Mayor for Greater Lincolnshire said she “couldn’t get justice” after being targeted.
She said that she no longer felt she or her son were safe .
“My office got graffitied, telling to me kill myself. The perpetrator was not found,” she told the press conference.
“I received 70 emails in three months telling me to buy a stab vest and watch out. The person was let off with a caution.
“Somebody chased my activist with a sledgehammer, which was caught on video. He was let off.
“A man was looking for me in the town I represented saying he wanted to kill me. He was let off.
“Someone tearing my gates down at my home – never found.
“Someone published the address of my home online recently where I live alone as a single parent with my child – police wouldn’t investigate.
“Campaigning on the doorstep last year, a man pulled his pants down in front of my young son and I. Nothing happened.”
She also read out two extremely offensive messages she’d received, and said “the first person was let off by the police, and the second was never found.”
It isn’t clear from her speech which incidents took place in Lincolnshire and which ones were in her previous MP constituency in Yorkshire.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service hasn’t been able to obtain further details about the incident from police, and Lincolnshire Police have declined to comment.
Violence against women and girls was described as a “national emergency” by the National Police Chiefs’ Council last year.
The government has committed to halving it in the next ten years, and a new strategy is set to be announced this summer.
Harassment and threats to politicians has also become more common, with MPs Jo Cox and Sir David Amess being murdered in the last decade.