MP 'was sent threatening email'

A Conservative MP was sent a threatening email telling her she would have to choose which one of her children would die, a court has heard.

Mother-of-three Louise Mensch, who is MP for Corby in Northamptonshire, was told she faced a "Sophie's Choice" - a reference to a novel and later film in which heroine Sophie has to choose between the life of her son or daughter at a Nazi concentration camp.

The sinister email was purportedly sent from the online hacking group Anonymous, Gloucester Magistrates' Court heard.

Louise Mensch MP was told she
faced a 'Sophie's Choice', a court has heard

However, police later arrested and charged Frank Zimmerman - a 60-year-old agoraphobic living in a run-down house in Gloucester.

Zimmerman, of Spinney Road, Barnwood, Gloucester, was accused of an offence of sending by public communication network an offensive, indecent, obscene, menacing message or matter on August 22 last year.

The court heard that Zimmerman had failed to attend any court appearance to answer the single charge he faced or give proper instructions to his solicitor - blaming his agoraphobia and depression.

Defence solicitor Charles Cronin told District Judge Martin Brown that he had spoken to Zimmerman by telephone and that he would not be attending court and was instead going back to bed.

In the defendant's absence, Judge Brown decided to proceed without him and held a hearing to determine whether Zimmerman had committed the offence.

©Press Association