British MP Stabbed to Death During Meeting With Voters

Police have arrested a 25-year-old attacker.

In Britain, 69-year-old MP David Amess was killed during a meeting with constituents. We tell you everything known so far.

The Murder of Amess

Conservative MP David Amess of the ruling Conservative Party died after receiving several stab wounds during a meeting with constituents at a church in his constituency in Leigh-on-Sea.

The 25-year-old killer entered during the meeting and immediately stabbed the MP. Police said they had arrested the suspect on suspicion of murder and found a knife on him. He is now in custody. Nothing is known about the perpetrator’s motives. 

“A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a person was stabbed to death in Leigh-on-Sea,” said an Essex Police statement. “We were called to an address on Eastwood Road North shortly after 12:05 (October 15 — ed.).”

A Sky News correspondent reported that Amess had suffered a very serious stab wound and was no longer breathing when police arrived.

Police, for their part, said they tried to help Amess before paramedics arrived, but he died at the scene.

Following Sir David’s death, flags in Parliament have been lowered to half-mast.

Lindsay Hoyle
Speaker of the House of Commons of the UK Parliament

This incident will shock the parliamentary community and the entire country. In the coming days we will need to discuss and examine MPs’ security and any measures that need to be taken, but for now our thoughts and prayers are with David’s family, friends and colleagues.

What is known about the MP

Amess’s death has caused a stir in British political circles. The vast majority of politicians have expressed grief over him and described him as a “kind and considerate person”.

Former Communities and Local Government minister Eric Pickles condemned the murder of the Conservative MP as “terribly sad and tragic news”.

Eric Pickles
former Communities and Local Government minister of the UK

David was an excellent family man, a very open person and a very good member of the House of Commons. He was extremely good company. He cared passionately about a number of issues, in particular animal welfare, and he was someone who really knew how the system worked. Some people choose the path of minister, but David knew how to act in the House of Commons to achieve his goal.

Conservative MP David Davis paid tribute to Sir David Amess, calling him a “good” and “decent” man.

David Davis
UK MP

Clearly our prayers and thoughts are with his family, friends and staff. This is a great loss for Parliament. He was someone who clearly cared deeply about people.

Conservative local councillor David Garston said Sir David Amess was a very accessible MP who “stopped every hundred yards to talk to someone”.

David Garston
member of the local council of the Conservative Party

He was probably one of the best constituency MPs in the country, and because he was so accessible and was everywhere, he clearly left himself vulnerable and did not think twice about it. <...> Finding an MP like Sir David, who did not think about a ministerial position — he was not interested, he was a public figure — I would say he is irreplaceable.

Amess had been an MP since 1983, representing his Southend West constituency for more than 20 years.

Throughout his long parliamentary career he never held a ministerial post, but focused his efforts from the backbenches, often calling for Southend to be recognized as a city.

Sir David was a passionate animal lover and promoted many parliamentary bills on animal protection.

He supported Britain’s exit from the EU ahead of the referendum, but later described the years between the referendum and Brexit itself as “three and a half terrible years in Parliament”.

Both of his parents came from relatively poor families, and he was raised as a Catholic.

Sir David and his wife Julia had five children: David, Catherine, Sarah, Alexandra and Florence.

Similar Killings

Many draw comparisons with the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016, who was shot by an extreme-right extremist.

Cox was the mother of two children and had been Labour MP for Batley and Spen for just over a year at the time of her murder.

She was the first MP killed in the line of duty since 1990, when Ian Gow became the last in a series of MPs killed by Northern Irish terrorist groups.

Eastbourne MP Ian Gow was killed by a car bomb at his home in Sussex at the age of 53.

Before him, Conservative MP Anthony Berry was killed in an explosion by the same Irish group, but at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, where Margaret Thatcher had previously stayed.

The group also killed Ulster Unionist Party MP Robert Bradford, who was shot dead at his constituency surgery in a community centre in Belfast in 1981.

The only other sitting MP killed in the postwar period was former Northern Ireland Secretary Airey Neave, whose car was blown up at Westminster by the Irish National Liberation Army.