Threatening calls to son night before ‘not linked’ to murder of Sir David Amess, say police

A series of threatening phone calls made to the adult son of Sir David Amess the evening before the MP's murder were "not linked in any way" to the attack, police have said.

Katie Amess, the daughter of the politician, has called for a full inquest into his death and said there are still unanswered questions.

In an interview with ITV News, she explained how Sir David's son, also called David Amess, had received calls the night before the MP's murder making threats, which were reported to police.

Essex police said this incident, which was reported, and the murder of Sir David Amess were not linked.

Sir David, 69, was stabbed to death by Ali Harbi Ali at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea in Essex on 15 October 2021.

The father-of-five had been holding a surgery in his Southend West constituency when he was attacked by Ali, who was sentenced to a whole-life prison term for the murder in 2022.

Speaking to Radio 4's Today Programme, Ms Amess said: "Obviously you would presume given that there was a death threat to a member of parliament they would turn up the next day to protect him.

“The guy that killed my father admitted that he had gone to another surgery or other people’s houses to kill them and when he saw a police presence he obviously didn’t go through with the attack.

“Had the police have been there, we might not be sitting here today without my father.”

Essex Police said that the force was contacted at around 9pm on 14 October 2021 “following reports of threats made to a man in his 30s”.

“We immediately launched an investigation and a woman in her 20s and a man in his 30s, both from Southend, were arrested,” a spokesman said.

“This incident and the murder of Sir David were not linked in any way, and the people arrested and the person the threat was made directly to were known to each other and none were connected to Ali Harbi Ali.”

Essex's senior coroner Lincoln Brookes addressed the issue of the threats made to Sir David’s son in his 18-page decision not to resume an inquest into Sir David’s death.

He said that Sir David’s adult son had called Essex Police and “said that he had received a series of threatening telephone calls”.

The coroner said that documents provided to him by police “appear to show that the threats raised by Mr Amess the evening before Sir David’s death were taken seriously and were acted upon by the police”.

He said that the investigation into the calls continued after the killing and it was “established that this was a wholly unconnected event”.

Mr Brookes said that the calls “were not threats to Sir David’s life” and the circumstances described do not demonstrate “any arguable breach of either a systemic or an operational duty in respect of a murder in unrelated circumstances by an unrelated person”.

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