A FORMER local MP has praised the efforts of police and the justice system after he was bombarded with threatening emails.

Roger Mullin, who was MP for Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy until he lost his seat to Labour’s Lesley Laird last year, started receiving the messages in December 2016.

He said they got worse over a four-week period which led to him bringing them to the attention of the authorities.

“MPs get a lot of things coming through that are unpleasant and the vast majority of which you get and put to one side and never complain about,” Mr Mullin told the Times.

“When the emails from this individual started coming through, they were getting increasingly worrying in their tone.

“I personally thought the person who was sending these in such a way they might be disturbed in some way. We have a duty of care if that is the case.

“From the other side of the coin, I had to be concerned about myself and my staff so even if someone has had a little difficulty, it doesn’t mean they would not act out fantasies or whatever in a disturbing way so I had to be careful.

“Because it was in the aftermath of Jo Cox’s death – it was only about six months or so after – I took advice from the Westminster authorities. I let them know what was happening and their advice was to go to the local police.”

Mr Mullin referred the matter to Police Scotland and the matter concluded this week with the offender having his sentence deferred for him to be of good behaviour.

“I always said to the authorities, I am happy to leave it to them to decide if any course of action should be taken and I never pushed for any charges.

“I said it was simply up to them to investigate and do as they saw fit which they did”.

The former SNP MP added: “It would appear that my original suspicions were correct as when sentencing last week, it was revealed that the individual had not been taking medication for mental health issues.

“It was in those circumstances I think that the Sheriff did absolutely the right thing in not saying we are going to give you a maximum punishment but we are going to give you the chance to look after yourself. I was justified in being careful and it has been handled very well by the justice system.

“I would have to say that I was very impressed by the way in which the police, the Sheriff and the Crown handled the whole case.”