A woman who was threatened with acid by the former Labour MP Claudia Webbe was having sex with the politician’s boyfriend, a court heard.
Webbe, who now sits as the independent MP for Leicester East after being expelled from Labour, is appealing against her harassment conviction and 10-week suspended jail sentence after she was found guilty in November 2021.
The 57-year-old allegedly threatened to reveal naked pictures of 59-year-old Michelle Merritt in a string of phone calls she made to her between September 2018 and April 2020.
Helen Law, representing the MP, has suggested a “glaring omission” in Ms Merritt’s accounts in police witness statements and evidence during the trial was that she was “having sex” with Webbe’s boyfriend Lester Thomas.
Prosecutors say Webbe, who was elected in 2019, was driven by “obsession” and “jealousy” over Mr Thomas’s relationship with the executive assistant.
Ms Merritt’s phone has been examined by police and downloaded since the…
