MP Amesbury pleads guilty to assault

Labour poised to impose ousted Ashworth as candidate if sentence forces or allows by-election

Runcorn and Helsby MP Mike Amesbury has pleaded guilty today at Chester Magistrates’ Court to assault by beating 45yo local man Paul Fellows during an attack in Frodsham last October. The incident went viral after CCTV footage caught Amesbury cold-punching Fellows in the head, then at least five more times after he fell to the ground during the early hours of 26 October and shouting: ‘You won’t threaten the MP ever again, will you?’

Fellows had rebuked Amesbury about a local bridge closure, but Amesbury’s defence did not present any evidence he had been threatened. Instead, Amesbury’s defence lawyer said that “Rightly or wrongly, Mr Amesbury interpreted what was being said as no longer a conversation but something to which he thought there was another motive to.” [sic]

Amesbury now awaits sentencing, but district judge Tanveer Ikram warned that while the range of sentencing possibilities ranged from a “high level community order or a range up to a prison sentence”, he considered the continued assault on Fellows as he lay stunned after the first punch was an ‘aggravating factor’:

I have already made mention of the fact whilst there was a single punch to the face, the victim ended up on the floor and he was further attacked again on the floor. That seems to me an additional aggravating factor.

I am leaving all options upon at this stage.

If Amesbury is sentenced to more than twelve months imprisonment, he will be banned as an MP and a by-election will automatically be triggered. If he receives any kind of custodial sentence, even if it is suspended, a ‘recall petition’ can be triggered to force a by-election.

As Skwawkbox revealed exclusively yesterday, Labour is set to impose right-winger Jonathan Ashworth to stand in the by-election after Ashworth was rejected by Leicester South voters last July over his support for genocidal Israel. Ashworth appears to have no connection to Cheshire but the Starmer regime has a history of parachuting in favoured candidates over the heads and wishes of local members. The far-right Reform ‘party’ has already started its campaigning in the seat and is thought to be a threat to Labour’s hold.

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