2 Labour MPs and 1 Conservative - all female - have had to "put up" with unbelievable & criminal abuse online.
Most MPs have suffered some form of Twitter abuse but the 3 worst examples I know best are Luciana Berger, Stella Creasey and Nadine Dorries.
Creasey is one of Labours brightest and most authentic young MPs - she has done great working taking on payday lenders: she was bombarded with rape and other threats. Her online assailant went to jail:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11127808/Twitter-troll-jailed-for-campaign-of-hatred-against-Stella-Creasy.html
Recently a Judge sent a neo- Nazi twitter troll to jail for the hate crimes he was heaping on Berger.
Her alleged crime? She is Jewish: http://www.jewishnews.co.uk/bergers-neo-nazi-twitter-troll-jailing-important-precedent/
Similarly awful campaigns have been launched against Dorries, and other celebrities who have dared to have an opinion or even exist in some cases. Chloe Madely was bombarded with rape threats online. No one would dare do this in a crowded pub or a workplace or in front of a policeman
So I am pleased the Justice Secretary has decided to act and increase prison sentences for these
offences to 2 years. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2798573/crackdown-cyber-mobs-poisoning-britain-sentence-web-trolls-quadrupled-two-years-shocking-high-profile-online-abuse-cases.html
There have been some who oppose this measure: I emphatically do not. I was in the Commons for m colleague Charlie Elphick's debate on this issue on Wednesday night: I was a good debate: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2014-10-23a.1146.0&s=speaker%3A24777#g1146.2
Luciana Berger was there, and I spoke to her after wards and made clear my absolute support for her. She made the key point that this is an offence and it needs to be reported to the police. No one has to "put up" with this. Rape threats, and worse, will mean custody for sure.
