Mike Amesbury MP has been suspended from the Labour Party after CCTV footage emerged which appears to show he punched one of his constituents in the face before attacking the victim while he was on the floor.
The footage, obtained by MailOnline, shows Mr Amesbury squaring up to one of his constituents at 2.15am on Saturday in his constituency of Runcorn and Helsby, Cheshire.
He proceeds to punch the victim in the face, who then falls into the road. The Labour MP then punches the victim at least six times more while he is on the ground.
The Labour politician, who has now lost the whip, has claimed he “felt threatened” in the run-up to the exchange and was later filmed telling the victim never to threaten him again as others attended to the injured man.
…
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Mike Amesbury MP has been assisting Cheshire Police with their inquiries following an incident on Friday night. As these inquiries are now ongoing, the Labour Party has administratively suspended Mr Amesbury’s membership of the Labour Party pending an investigation.’’
Previously:
edit: Video footage seems to be exclusive to the Daily Mail.
At a push, the first punch could be claimed to be self-defence but continuing after the other guy is on the ground is going to be difficult to explain.
The guy has his hands in his pockets. He’s not attempting to physically attack Amesbury.
There is no self-defence happening there.
Can’t say for England, but in America there is such a thing as “fighting words”. So what was said here?
If I say, “I will kill your wife and child in front of your fucking face!”, you’ll probably get away with beating my ass, hands in pockets or no.
I’m not really sure what the law is on it, but I’ve always presumed that self-defence only applies if someone is physically attacking you or is threatening you with a weapon.
But anyway, I guess this gives new meaning to being canvassed by your MP.
You are not wrong. Self-defence requires you to be able to show you had real reason to fear for yours, or someone else, safety.
So while a verble threat can apply. It needs to be backed up with some physically obvious danger. So hands in pockets etc would def make it hard to prove this MP felt truly threatened. And continuing to attack once the guy was on the ground, very hard.
But not a forgone conclusion. If we invent a history for idea telling
Just the fact this MP had an historical event of violence(according to another article shared). Means it is possible some statement was made that triggered fear, or the guy attacked was involved. Then it is entirely possible for a lawyer to argue the fear response was beyond rational. So the attack was self-defence due to the mental state of the perpetrator. Think PTSD like defence. It’s not claiming innocence, just astringent circumstances.