SNP MP reveals 3 men separately convicted for threatening behaviour towards her

The SNP MP for Aberdeen North, Kirsty Blackman, has revealed on Twitter this morning that since she was first elected to Parliament in 2015, three different men have been convicted as a result of threatening behaviour towards her.

Kirsty Blackman was formerly the SNP deputy leader at Westminster

Blackman detailed how the separate incidents involved a case of a verbal abuse, a threatening letter, and a man who travelled from the south of England to Aberdeen where he was intercepted by police. Blackman also claims to have made a number of other reports to police that have not met a necessary threshold for action.

Blackman’s comments follow the tragic death of Sir David Amess MP when holding a constituency surgery in Leigh on Sea on Friday.

In a series of tweets to her 26,000 Twitter followers, the Aberdeen North MP wrote, “I don’t talk about this.  I’ve said the last thing I want is for my children to go to school and catch sight of a newspaper reporting on threats to their mum, or to have other parents or teachers mention it”.

Blackman’s intervention comes after similar remarks by Joanna Cherry MP yesterday.

Cherry, the SNP MP for Edinburgh South West, told how she had recently started to consider her career in politics as a result of a “series of very unpleasant death threats and rape threats”.  These follow two related convictions, one relating to an incident at a constituency surgery, and another threat of sexual violence from a man who had a previous conviction for carrying a knife.

Cherry remarked how, “If I had known the level of threats, abuse and intimidation that I would face in politics then I wouldn’t have left my job as an advocate and gone into elected politics”.

Blackman and Cherry are widely regarded as being on opposite sides of an acrimonious debate occurring within Scottish National Party politics around the issue of transgender rights.