Between October 13, 2023, and February 20, 2023, Nabil Arif, 36, sent Ms. Phillips nasty communications about the Gaza crisis. One of the messages claimed, “Hell is real, and you will burn.”
At Birmingham Magistrates’ Court, he received a 12-week jail sentence and a restraining order prohibiting him from speaking with the MP for an indefinite period of time.
After a trial at the same court on July 29, Arif, of Warwick Road, Birmingham, was found guilty of sending an offensive, indecent, obscene, or menacing message or content via public communication network.
Ms. Phillips, the Birmingham Yardley MP since 2015, expressed concern that Arif’s aggressive behavior against her may intensify and possibly result in her suffering physical damage at his hands in a victim impact statement read aloud to the court.
“Immeasurably,” she added, this had “limited my freedom and my ability to do my job closely with the public as I used to do,” and it had transformed her life.
On February 20, she sent the last email, calling Arif “pathetic” and threatening to “burn until her skin is no more,” which led her to report him to the police.
